-The Telegraph The Union Budget reveals glaring gaps in allocations for education Appearances can be deceptive. On the face of it, education has been allotted Rs 1,04,278 crore — a rise of Rs 11,054 crore from 2021-2022 — in this year’s budget. However, this still amounts to just above 3 per cent of the gross domestic product, falling far short of the 6 per cent public investment recommended by the National Education...

-The Telegraph A significant factor behind legal pendency is the number of judicial vacancies, especially in lower courts — more than 5,000 vacancies over the last decade That justice delayed is justice denied is a reality with which Indians are all too familiar. A decade ago, India already had the world’s largest backlog of cases; the total has now climbed to a monumental 4.6 crore. The pandemic, predictably, has exacerbated the problem,...

-Livemint.com Digitization and militarization may aggravate the underlying structural conditions behind the Great Depression of 2008 and trigger a similarly dire crisis, says study There are warning signs that the global financial system is heading for another disaster. In a new paper, William I. Robinson of the University of California adds to these warning bells by highlighting how the rapid rise of digitalisation and new technologies could potentially hurt the global economy. In a...

-Livemint.com RBI annual report estimates value of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes returned was Rs 15.28 trillion against Rs 15.44 trillion in circulation before demonetisation Mumbai: According to Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) annual report released Wednesday, 98.96% of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes (by value) that were invalidated due to the demonetisation exercise had been returned by the end of June. The numbers put to rest one of the big...

-NDTV The "highest ever allocation" to NREGA (which also led to it trending on Twitter)  in the Union Budget has provided a useful opportunity to raise some pressing issues related to the implementation of the scheme. It is natural, and welcome, that the government turn to NREGA to provide much-needed relief to those whose already precarious lives have been disrupted by demonetization, a man-made economic disaster. Widespread reports of job losses...