Covid-19: Disturbing impact on India’s children
14% of children studying in government schools in villages, and 20% of those in government schools in urban areas, were deprived of midday meals during the pandemic period. […]
The deepening crisis of India’s Parliament
During the framing of India’s Constitution, multiple models of governance were proposed for the newly independent nation. The framers of the Constitution finally selected the model of “parliamentary democracy”. As the term suggests, there are two equally important constituent elements of this model — Parliament and democracy. [...]
Digital Health ID and Privacy Concerns
The official launch of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) started an initiative that will give every citizen a unique digital health ID, linked to a personal health record (PHR). The ID will also be linked to the Aadhaar. […]
Economic Cost of neglecting mental health of children
Economic price for neglecting mental health of children is $387.2 billion a year: UNICEF More than 13% adolescents aged 10-19 live with a diagnosed mental disorder globally […]
Pandora Papers
What are the Pandora Papers? These are 11.9 million leaked files from 14 global corporate services firms which set up about 29,000 off-the-shelf companies and private trusts in not just obscure tax jurisdictions but also countries such as Singapore, New Zealand, and the United States, for clients across the world. [...]
The Failure of Anti-defection law in Discouraging Defection
Context:- The Calcutta High Court has given West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee a deadline to pass an order in the defection case involving MLA Mukul Roy. He had contested and won the 2021 Assembly elections on a BJP ticket and then joined the Trinamool Congress. BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari, [...]
Indian Forex, Guidotti–Greenspan rule and a Sovereign Wealth Fund,
For a country like India, forex reserves have long been treated as precautionary savings that the government acquires as a “rainy day” fund to tide over any sudden decrease in capital inflows. In other words, it acts as a buffer against shocks to external wealth. […]
Pathways for Peace – UN and WB Report Summary
Context:- Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict is a joint study of the United Nations and the World Bank. The study originates from the conviction on the part of both institutions that the attention of the international community needs to be urgently refocused on prevention. [...]
Understanding the Taliban for what it is
A realistic assessment of the circumstances in which it has to operate should have induced the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to follow a moderate course. Instead, it has sent out unmistakable signs of a preference for extremism. A peculiar state of mind is almost certainly in play, but to ascribe [...]
Global Food Crisis and Lessons From India
Context:- The first and historic United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) 2021 which was held in September this year, concluded after an intense ‘bottom-up’ process conceived in 2019 by UN Secretary General António Guterres to find solutions and ‘catalyse momentum’ to transform the way the world produces, consumes, and thinks [...]