-The Indian Express Building infrastructure and services, including pre-primary education, maternity, disability and sickness benefits, and long-term care, will help ensure that India’s post-COVID recovery is equitable and gender-inclusive. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “infrastructure” as “the basic systems and services that are needed in order to support an economy.” Traditionally, infrastructure has been understood and interpreted to mean physical, immovable assets, primarily in the energy, transport, telecommunications and water sectors. Over the last...

-Hindustan Times The lockdown showed how migrant workers, let down by the State, community and market, are the nation’s most valuable resource Atmanirbharata is India’s new economic policy. Nirbharata means reliance, and atma means the self. The Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, announced by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, following the lockdown announced on March 24, 2020, calls for India’s economic mission to be based on self-reliance. Recently, the PM extolled the virtues of...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-TheThirdPole.net Authorities in Himachal Pradesh want to legalise unauthorised buildings in highest quake-risk region After years of legal tug of war, the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh could see a new relaxation of its urban planning rules, despite repeated warnings about the dangers of unfettered development on its cities’ fragile terrains. According to a 2015 report on landslide vulnerability, most of the built-up areas in Himachal Pradesh, northern India, are in a high-risk...

-TheWire.in Under Modi, the state bears the losses of the rich, with tax concessions and state subsidies. But, working classes have to live through complete doing away of fertiliser subsidies, and petrol and diesel subsidies. Last year on May 12, in the peak of COVID -19-induced lockdown, when the poorest of the poor migrant workers were walking thousands of kilometres to their homes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the insight of an...