-The Business Standard What must replace the Planning Commission An announcement of note in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech from the ramparts of Red Fort was the much-anticipated end of the Planning Commission. A full 23 years after India ushered in reforms that reduced emphasis on central planning, the crucially important organisation of the statist era will finally be dismantled. Both as signalling and as policy, this needs to be...

-Economic and Political Weekly How will the amendments to the Factories Act affect women workers? How do women view the "protections" and night work? Apoorva Kaiwar (akaiwar@yahoo.co.in) is a labour lawyer and consultant on issues of gender and labour. The central government is proposing to amend several labour laws. The process of amending them has been underway since 2011, which means that it is not only the new dispensation that is eager to...

-Economic and Political Weekly The study examines the experience of women farmers who lack rights to land and related factors of production, and provides insights into a number of conditions that hamper rural women's right to agricultural land. Further, it explores how inheritance practices disfavour women, and those women who claim land encounter many institutional and non-institutional constraints. In conclusion, the paper suggests policy and practice measures for women's economic empowerment...

-The Hindu The government deserves congratulations for its firm stand at the WTO, which finds support in Rodrik's trilemma The Princeton don Dani Rodrik is one of the world's leading economists. He is a firm believer in and supporter of globalisation. However, he has also posed a famous "globalisation trilemma." A trilemma describes a situation where only two of three things can hold true at the same time. If any two out...

-The Indian Express Focusing on private asset creation will only exacerbate its design and implementation failures. In his budget speech, Arun Jaitley shied away from taking a tough stand on the MGNREGA. In a seemingly non-controversial comment, he emphasised that "wage employment would be provided under MGNREGA through works that are more productive, asset creating and substantively linked to agriculture and allied activities". The subtext, however, is controversial. As argued below, far...