Centrally Sponsored Schemes and India’s Shifting Federal Balance
The State governments across India are increasingly facing backlash when it comes to welfare provisioning, with the most criticism centered on finances and fiscal stress on individual States. While concerns about shrinking fiscal space are often raised, these are not unusual. In fact, this is how States are meant to function. In our fiscal federalism, […]
The Economic Survey 2020-2021: Growth Does Not Necessarily Work for the Poor
Dedicated to the Covid Warriors, the 561-page-long Economic Survey of India for the year 2020-21 was placed before the Parliament of India on January 29, 2021. The survey, being an analysis on the macroeconomic status of the economy, estimated the Covid-induced economic contraction at 7.7 percent of the GDP during FY 2020-21, with the GDP […]
Indian women work much harder than men – is anyone listening?
All women work. Even those who are not considered ‘working,’ work, and work hard. That is because they are the ones who are usually responsible for all care work in the family. This is true for the entire world but truer for India and other South Asian countries. According to a global report published by […]
Supreme Court Ruling on Aadhaar and Right to Education Admissions in Karnataka
On 26th September 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the use of Aadhaar for availing any government benefit or subsidy but made the use of Aadhaar non-mandatory for the purpose of education for those in the age group of 6-14 years. Prior to this ruling, a number of government departments had made Aadhaar mandatory for availing […]
‘Casteless hostels’: limits and possibilities
Spaces of formal education, whether they are schools, colleges or universities, are never about classroom learning alone. While the political activism of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and University of Hyderabad (to some extent) may have caught the attention of national media over the last few years, it is important to recognise that in different […]
Precarity in Education: Insights from a study on the vocationalization of secondary education in India
Vocationalization of education in India was introduced fairly early in 1988 to offer vocational courses for two years alongside other subjects in higher secondary education. The programme was revised to the VHSE (Vocationalization of Higher Secondary Education) in 2011 with a view to cater to India’s economic growth and a growing demand for labour in […]
Development as Hegemony
Recently I attended a workshop on Indian Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) participation in developmental activities abroad. The meet was to discuss the implications of and the way forward for Indian civil society’s participation in regional and pan-regional development and cooperation activities. A number of reputed organisations who have had a long history in the development […]
Bengaluru Rural District or Bangalore Feeder District?
Bengaluru Rural district is an administrative unit but lacks an identity; it is a district only in name. Bangalore district was bifurcated into two districts, Bangalore Urban and Bangalore Rural in 1986. It was further bifurcated in 2007 after Ramanagar district consisting of 4 taluks was carved out, leaving Bangalore Rural with only four taluks: […]
It is Quite Simple, Really
Everyone agrees that there is a lot of black money in the country. Some say it is 50% of Gross Domestic Product. Black money is generated when a transaction is either illegal, or is hidden from tax authorities. The easiest way of doing this is through cash transactions. Hence the popular notion of ‘suitcases’ of […]
It Takes Two to Tango
Governance is often seen as what the government does, which is only partly true. Although governance has been variously defined, most of them recognize that governance has two aspects – one, it is exercise of power and authority and two, it is about the government’s ability and capacity to effectively fulfill its mandate (for a […]