-The Indian Express I think packaging a significant UBIS with a simultaneous increase in the taxes on the rich will help macro-economic stability, apart from assuaging the poor who will face some of the price rise in commodities or services, when subsidies are withdrawn. After my last op-ed in this paper (The safety net of the future) several readers, intrigued by the idea of a Universal Basic Income Supplement (UBIS) proposed...

-The Hindu With no will to enforce the 1982 Act, girls from marginalised communities in Karnataka are still trafficked Panaji: More than thirty-six years after the Karnataka Devadasis (Prohibition of Dedication) Act of 1982 was passed, the State government is yet to issue the rules for administering the law. Meanwhile the practice of dedicating young girls to temples as an offering to appease the gods persists not just in Karnataka, but has...

-Hindustan Times The agrarian crisis is one of the factors that may have resulted in the BJP’s loss in three Hindi heartland states of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in December, according to analysts, and the party clearly doesn’t want it to affect its prospects in the 2019 parliamentary elections. New Delhi: This financial year, 2018-19 could end up being the worst year for farm incomes in almost two decades, government data...

-Down to Earth Sunita Narain on cow-vigilantism, cattle trade and the collapse of the livestock economy of India I would not advocate vegetarianism. When I reasoned this out in this column a few years ago, I received the usual insults. Environmentalists are expected to be vegetarian, or better vegan! But what many didn’t register was my emphasis: “I am saying this as an Indian environmentalist; not global or western environmentalist.” My argument has...

-Down to Earth The increasing trend of legal penalty for abandonment will backfire Bruised by anti-cow slaughter laws and widespread vigilantism, farmers simply don’t want cows around. This means tactical abandoning, with decreasing options to trade unproductive cattle. But several states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, have formed laws to penalise such abandonment too. Stray cattle has become a menace in villages as well as towns in several areas, to...