-Scroll.in JNU professor Himanshu says the economic slowdown is not the result of a one-off event like demonetisation, the slump began almost two years ago. The economy is in a trough. The first quarter of 2017-2018 saw the growth of gross domestic product (the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a year) drop to 5.7% from 7.9% in the corresponding period last year – the...

-Hindustan Times After Tamil Nadu’s pioneering Amma canteens, many states have started community kitchens, such as Karnataka’s Indira Canteens. This is a welcome development. The first coverage of the recently inaugurated “Indira canteens” in Karnataka that I noticed were two reports on television channels. Both were poking fun (justifiably) at Rahul Gandhi’s goofy speech at the launch. Sadly though, neither commented on the rationale or importance of the Karnataka government’s initiative. This...

-The Indian Express   Niti Aayog proposal for privatising public hospitals is ill-designed, driven by ideology more than welfare The corporate hospitals have been resting their gaze on public hospitals for long: Land, doctors and patients. Finally, in the Niti Aayog, they have found a sympathetic collaborator. As per media reports, the Aayog is all set to push states to privatise well functioning district hospitals in the Tier 2 and 3...

-The Indian Express The Niti Aayog's report, submitted before the United Nations, acknowledges that anti-poverty programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) helped weaker sections of the society. Vindicating the UPA government’s stand on pulling people out of poverty, India’s Voluntary National Review Report on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals to the United Nations has said that sustained growth of 8.3 per cent from 2004-05 to 2011-12,...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...