-The Hindu In bridging the GST gap, the Centre ought to help States through the Consolidated Fund of India It is beyond anyone’s imagination that the Government of India would invoke the “Force Majeure” clause against its own people. Unfortunately, this has become reality at a time when every Indian State is massively burdened by the COVID-19 crisis and governance has been severely affected. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement on Thursday that the...

-The Hindu As decennial census operations are limited, India needs new ways to know its cumulative human capital and potential Since India’s crimes data recording system is not built to capture subtleties, we do not know what proportion of pregnancies in India start off without the consent of the woman, even though the veil of marriage may cover it legally and culturally. While physical and mental violence can be ascertained by a...

-The Hindu Forest communities are being seen as the primary drivers of denudation during lockdown, while we continue to ignore the impacts of fast-tracked environmental clearances for dams and mines A photograph of a young man, presumably tribal, or a returning migrant, or both, with the carcasses of two hares slung over his shoulder, was recently emblazoned on the cover of a report by a reputed wildlife NGO. The report — based...

-The Indian Express The economic slowdown, which has been underway for almost three years now, began to adversely impact GST revenue collections in August last year. While the Centre Thursday chose to pin much of the blame for the delays on GST compensation payments to the slowdown inflicted by the pandemic, the delays preceded the Covid-19 shock by almost a year – when payments due for August-September 2019 got delayed. Since then,...

-Down to Earth The Event 142 variety of genetically modified brinjal was quietly given approval without any data in the public domain, claim experts Experts have slammed a recent move of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) — a government-appointed committee responsible for appraisal of proposals of genetically engineered organisms — giving its greenlight for biosafety research-level-II (BRL-II) field trials for Event 142, a new variety of genetically modified brinjal (Bt brinjal)...