-The Indian Express The budget should have shown how serious it was about inclusive growth by announcing direct cash support to informal workers, circular migrants, agricultural labour, in addition to steady in-kind food transfers from the overflowing coffers of the FCI by making PDS universal. India’s annual budget, announced amidst much anticipation, focused on health as one of its key pillars. The fact that health and “inclusive growth” found their way into...

-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,...

-The Telegraph The Union budget is an extended piece of fiction There is one central message of the Narendra Modi government to the people of India from Budget 2021-22: you will have to be ‘atmanirbhar’ because you’re on your own. The Central government does not have your back. In the midst of the worst health and economic crisis the country has faced since Independence, it will not protect you. It will not...

-Article-14.com Six sedition cases during the farm protests; 25 during anti-CAA protests; 22 after the Hathras gangrape; 27 after Pulwama: Our study of sedition cases over the last decade reveals a 28% rise in such cases—in violation of Supreme Court guidelines—especially against critics and protesters since 2014 Mumbai: Sedition cases—in violation of clear Supreme Court guidelines—against six journalists and former deputy foreign minister Shashi Tharoor on 28 January 2020 in 10 first...

-Deccan Herald Many of us have grown hearing the story of how Dronacharya is slain in the Mahabharata by a half-truth Many of us have grown hearing the story of how Dronacharya is slain in the Mahabharata by a half-truth. On Krishna’s advice, Bhima kills an elephant that bears the same name as Ashwattama, Drona’s son, and Yudhishtira announces that Ashwattama, Drona’s son, and Yudhishtira announces that Ashwattama, the elephant, is dead,...