-OutlookIndia.com The new welfarism as part of the neoliberal reforms undertaken in early 1990s is yet to ensure that all citizens receive enough nutritious food In December last year, Anjali—a student of MNM Government Girls School at Gangavati in Karnataka’s Koppal district—vented out her anger against deprivation of basic nutritious food, a chronic problem that plagues more than a quarter of India’s total population. In a viral rant, she called the bluff...

-Newsclick.in A guaranteed MSP system will also reduce public storage costs/wastage if it is complemented by a universal public distribution system. The year-long protest by farmers and workers compelled the Centre to repeal the three contentious farm laws, which were designed to further corporate encroachment in agriculture, on November 29. On December 11, the protest ended but not before the protesters reiterated their demand for a legal guarantee on Minimum Support Price...

-Newsclick.in The votaries of economic reforms miss the point that while it may have increased GDP growth rate, it has worsened the conditions of the working people. It is 30 years since India adopted Neoliberal policies in 1991, though some would date their introduction even earlier to 1985. Newspapers are full of assessments of the impact of these policies on the economy, and liberalisers from Manmohan Singh downward, have suddenly become visible,...

-The Indian Express For a healthy agrarian sector, the state must strengthen and protect the position of the cultivator. As long as land acquisition continues at its current pace, there is little chance of that happening. As farmers from Punjab and Haryana force the central government into unconditional talks, demanding nothing less than a repeal of the three new farm laws, the BJP-led NDA government insists the reforms are “farmer-friendly”. The farm...

-The Indian Express Countries more successful in curbing COVID-19 are welfare states, ruled by left-of-centre parties. There is a lesson here. A plea has been filed before the Supreme Court, seeking to remove the words “socialist” and “secular” from the Preamble of the Constitution. But despite a persistent erosion over the last couple of decades, both principles were central to the type of republic our political forefathers had imagined. With the embrace...