-The Hindu Just as individuals are punished for legal violations, the government of the day must also be punished for the violation of these basic rights. Three thoughts occur to me in the aftermath of the horrific tragedy in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, where the systemic failure of health care has killed over a hundred children. First, like the constitutional principle of a basic structure, it is time to ARTiculate an equally robust...

-The Hindu Three agencies have come up with varying figures, ranging from 7-120% of GDP, it said The Standing Committee on Finance has shied away from estimating the quantum of black money in and outside India, saying that different methods by various agencies are yielding vastly differing figures. The Standing Committee relied on three institutes — the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, the National Institute of Financial Management and the...

-Scroll.in Even at night, people living in densely-built, low-income urban neighbourhoods get no respite. As India stares at one of the longest heatwaves in three decades – which so far has claimed over 200 lives – experts warn that the scorcher will impact people in poor urban neighbourhoods for weeks after even after it is over. In a study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment in April, researchers mapped and...

-The Hindu Bengaluru: In the arid Budnahatti village just beyond Challakere, the four borewells dug to provide villagers with drinking water have stARTed drying up because of consecutive droughts. “There is barely one inch of water yield from here, not enough for everyone in the village. We have requisitioned authorities to drill three more borewells, but we may have to go more than 1,000 feet deep to get some water,” says Eswarappa,...

-The Hindu The institution can play an important role in refreshing India’s fiscal federalism India’s Constitution-makers thought of India as a union of States with a centripetal bias, done, advisedly, to preserve the unity and integrity of a newly fledged nation. Since then, the Indian economy, polity, demography and society have undergone many changes. The new aspirational India is now firmly on a growth turnpike. It is in this context that we...