KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-The Telegraph ‘Ill-timed, improper’ amendment notified by Centre a bid by ruling party to take ‘undue advantage’, says former economic affairs secretary New Delhi: Former Union economic affairs secretary E.A.S. Sarma has asked the Election Commission of India to prevent the fresh sale of electoral bonds, as allowed under an amendment notified by the Centre on Monday that he described as “ill-timed, improper” and as a bid by the ruling party to...

-The Hindu Court wanted to earlier take up a long-pending challenge against the government’s electoral bonds scheme, but the COVID-19 pandemic played spoilsport, says CJI N.V. Ramana Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana on Tuesday told advocate Prashant Bhushan that the court wanted to take up earlier a long-pending challenge against the government’s electoral bonds scheme, but the COVID-19 pandemic played spoilsport. Mr. Bhushan, who represents petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms, informed the...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court’s suggestion to ‘match the following’ on political donations is impractical and incorrect In 2014, the Delhi High Court held that both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were guilty of illegally accepting donations from two companies registered in India but whose controlling shareholder was Vedanta, a foreign company. The court held that this was in contravention of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 1976, as...