-The Hindu In seeking to pursue conflicting objectives, the policy architecture is complex and difficult to implement Contrary to popular perception, public policies are made without full knowledge or facts. More often than not, they embody assumptions arising from experience, an understanding of history, and present conditions. Considering the vast sea of unknowns surrounding COVID-19, it would be understandable to place a greater reliance on historical experience. Instead, India’s vaccine policy appears...

-TheNewsMinute.com There have been cases of people saying that their KYC details, which were shared with the Chinese loan apps, were used to open bank and crypto exchange accounts in their names, without consent. Shonali*, a 48-year-old lecturer from West Bengal was laid off from a private university in March 2020. The lecturer, facing financial stress, turned to Chinese-owned instant loan applications that provide microloans without collateral, but at high-interest rates. Shonali...

-The Hindu House panel on education discusses COVID-19 impact The Centre is assessing how badly school students have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and will collect States’ surveys on digital education access and learning losses by the end of this month, the School Education Department told a parliamentary panel on education on Monday. The panel asked the Centre to also assess the impact of its own guidelines and interventions, as well as...

-Livemint.com Policymakers are flying blind when it comes to designing an effective response to the pandemic As the second wave of covid-19 ebbs in India and policy focus shifts to the economic damage caused by lockdowns for the second consecutive year, economists are finding it hard to assess the extent and spread of the damage. The absence of benchmark survey data in the pre-pandemic period, the abrupt halt to most survey work during...

-The Inidan Express A white paper detailing the true state of Tamil Nadu’s finances will be released in July, said Governor Banwarilal Purohit during the first session of the 16th state legislative assembly in Chennai. Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government will form an economic advisory council comprising Nobel laureate Esther Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA and former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan to advise the chief...