-IdeasforIndia.in Examining the 2021-22 Union Budget with a political economy lens, Yamini Aiyar contends that the policy choices reflects Government of India’s propensity to centralise rather than to devolve, and a shift away from welfarism. Following the presentation of the Union Budget 2021-22 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 1 February, economists have carefully scrutinised the fiscal math and debated the economic rationale behind the policy choices. Beyond the fiscal math, the...

-Hindustan Times Several announcements — a bad bank, the proposal for a development financial institution, and bank recapitalisation — aim at reforming the economy. But these will not respond to the structural inequalities caused by the pandemic Covid-19 is a crisis like no other. And, expectedly, it has wreaked havoc on the Government of India (GoI)’s financial arithmetic as it struggled to deal with collapsing tax revenues and increased expenditure pressures. Therefore,...

-Scroll.in ‘LiveLaw’ and ‘Bar & Bench’ have revolutionised legal reporting by tweeting about proceedings in real time, bringing them to the screens of general readers. On November 19, Justice DY Chandrachud of the Supreme Court of India made a passing comment while hearing a case. “I will tell you something in a lighter vein,” he said. “Instead of wading through the pleadings before us, I thought I will check LiveLaw or other...

-Hindustan Times The anti-CAA protests, the defiance of migrants, and now the farmers’ stir show that the everyday practice of democracy is a powerful corrective in the face of arbitrary and unilateral State decisions Three events defined India’s political landscape in 2020. The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the migrant labour crisis that unfolded as workers defied lockdown orders and asserted their rights, choosing to walk home in the face...

-The Telegraph Agriculture has a moral economy that the media lack The farmers strike of 2020 as an event was a collage of multiple narratives. It tempted one to compare it to the story of the seven blind men and the elephant. As reportage, it lacked the solidity of traditional narratives. It was as if every reporter and news broadcaster, every witness, had a different reaction to the events of the week....