MGNREGA – India’s employment guarantee scheme – is no more. GOI scrapped it last week and replaced it with another tongue-twister acronym: VB-G RAM G. MGNREGA had many problems and the new scheme has left them largely unaddressed. MGNREGA penetration was lowest in the poorest states (Bihar and UP) that also generate the most migrants….
There is little doubt that the MAGA crowd in America that goes into raptures every time their patron saint, Donald Trump, makes an outrageous claim, would be aware of the name Angus Maddison. He is an economic historian who has argued convincingly that India & China accounted for almost 50% of the global GDP in…
As every year, the alarmingly high air quality index (AQI) continues to torment people in Delhi-NCR. The stubbornness of air pollution in winters is the consequence of two causes: wrong, misleading diagnosis; and incompetence and worse of the authorities at all levels. A section of environmentalists has succeeded in peddling the myth that vehicular emissions…
The international law considers intervention by considering less the labels and more behavior: what was undertaken, where, how often with the degree of coercion and what purported legal authority. The legal analysis thus varies on whether the action is armed action, assistance to non-state relationships, recognition and invitation or even the economic step like sanctions….
In Patna, a tiny Sudha milk booth has anchored the corner of my street for more than ten years, a permanent fixture supplying the capital with Comfed’s fresh milk. Then, overnight, it was dismantled and its owner forced to sell in the open in the chilly winter. The formal reason offered was simple and lawful:…
You have your say; we have our way – that’s the message DMK has sent its allies. Against the backdrop of several Congress leaders speaking of power-sharing – and the leadership being strategically ambiguous – DMK deputy general secretary and rural administration minister I Periyasamy on Sunday told reporters in Dindigul, “Congress has the right…
The term constitutional morality was first used by Dr B R Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly while responding to criticism that India’s Constitution contained unnecessary administrative details that should have been left to Parliament or the government. Dr Ambedkar remarked that ‘Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially…