-Frontline.in Interview with Aruna Roy. ARUNA ROY is a well-known social and political activist. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, she resigned from the IAS in 1975 and has since worked with the most oppressed in society. Aruna Roy’s observation on government service is indicative of her future concerns: “Everyone calls it an elite service; I always felt the discourse should be a bit better than what it was. I was shocked...

-The New Indian Express In a major relief to in-patients, the Kerala High Court on Friday said medicines, implants and other materials used during procedures at hospitals do not constitute sale and sales tax cannot be levied KOCHI: Medical bills in hospitals across the country are skyrocketing, but Kerala may see a downward trend. In a major relief to in-patients, the Kerala High Court on Friday said medicines, implants and other...

-The Hindu The Electoral Bond Scheme inhibits the citizen’s capacity to meaningfully participate in political and public life Early this year the government introduced an Electoral Bond Scheme purportedly with a view to cleansing the prevailing culture of political sponsorship. But the programme’s failings have been so blindingly obvious, and its consequences so utterly devastating to rectitude and transparency in government, that even O.P. Rawat, who just retired Chief Election Commissioner, thought...

-The Hindu How a business friendly government has failed to arrest the slide in private investment It may appear that the recent hullabaloo over GDP (gross domestic product) growth in the past decade has cast a shadow over assessment of the economy’s progress since 2014, but it is not so. There exists enough information for this as GDP is not the sole indicator on which one needs to rely in such an...

-The Hindu The Indian education system would be a good place to start with reforms, says the development economist Jean Drèze is possibly the world’s most famous Belgian-Indian. He has lived in India since 1979, and is an Indian citizen. As a development economist and activist, he has helped draft some startlingly pro-people legislations, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, and the National Food Security Act, 2013....