-The Indian Express Nearly 30 years ago, the Lalu Prasad government in Bihar introduced the step of menstrual leave for working women — revolutionary both for the state (which lags on most development indices), and for its time (when women formed a small portion of working staff). Zomato’s decision to grant menstrual leave to its women employees has sparked a polarised discussion on whether such a policy will sow seeds of discrimination...

-TheWire.in An increase in prices of pulses affects consumption and has ramifications for food and nutritional security. In April 2020, the retail prices of Moong and Urad increased by 25% and 11% compared to their five-year monthly average prices. Also, the retail prices of Moong in 2020 have consistently remained 25% more than the monthly five-year average prices for the period of March to July. An increase in prices of pulses affects consumption and...

-Livemint.com/ howindialives.com The recovery of India’s foreign trade from the pandemic is patchy. But it’s better in exports than in imports On 15 Aug, standing on the Red Fort ramparts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated his government’s economic vision of self-sufficiency, adding that India would aim to become the supplier to the world. A day earlier, India had reported its latest trade numbers, and for the second successive month, India’s goods exports...

-Hindustan Times Universalise PDS, make it demand-driven; give more funds to states; and ramp up MGNREGS I pen this column with a depressing sense of deja vu. Back in late March as India went into lockdown, I wrote in these pages of the urgent need for the State to change the rules of the game, avoid red tape, improve Centre-state coordination and adapt agile administrative processes as it sought to provide relief...

-The Hindu The resultant distress in India has exacerbated pre-existing structures of disadvantage based on social identity In his book, The Great Leveler, Walter Scheidel, the Austrian economic historian, argues that throughout human history, there have been four types of catastrophic events that have led to greater economic equality: pandemic, war, revolution and state collapse. Currently, the world is going through one of them: a massive COVID-19 pandemic. In Scheidel’s analysis, the...