By Anjan Roy Finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has delivered a muscular and masculine budget with lots of enthusiasm in it. She has been ambitious and seeking to set the court for the country for the next 25 years, hidden in platitudes of Amrit Kaal. Ignoring the rising fiscal deficit...
By Harihar Swarup On the face of it, Bhagat Singh Mann, the newly anointed chief ministerial face of the Aam Admi Party in coming election in Punjab has a razor sharp wit directed towards the ruling dispensation, and the bluster. Be it in a village, a dhaba or a...
By Medea Benjamin It’s a historic new era for Honduras, where the people managed to defeat Juan Orlando Hernández’s narco state and elect Xiomara Castro, the country’s first-ever woman president, and a progressive to boot. As presidential candidate of the left-leaning Libre Party, Xiomara Castro won a landslide victory...
By James M. Dorsey Iran recently scored not one but two soccer successes. Fans celebrated after the country’s national team qualified for the third consecutive time for the World Cup after beating Iraq 1:0 last week. It wasn’t just men celebrating. It was men and women mingling freely in...
By Nantoo Banerjee The massive outlay for capital expenditure in the union budget is the boldest and most timely step taken by the government to ensure a speedy economic recovery. It will address the issue of unemployment and loss of individual income which plagued the economy through the two...
By Kalyani Shankar Every leader takes advantage of a crucial moment to settle down. The current Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections will be a decisive moment for the political future of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Once considered a trump card, she now faces a massive challenge in the present elections. The...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak The Union Budget 2022-23 provisions and allocations for health, education, and labour are too little to initiate ease of life in the next fiscal. Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has claimed that the budget has laid foundation for economic growth for the next 25 years which...
By K Raveendran Nirmala Sitharaman’s 2022-23 budget has a number of digital initiatives. But the main highlight is the introduction of Digital Rupee based on blockchain, a technology that drives the cryptocurrencies. The digital rupee will be a digital depiction of an Indian rupee supported by the Reserve Bank...
By Anjan Roy Nirmala Sitharaman in her fourth budget presented on Tuesday February1 has straightaway kicked off an agitated debate with her proposal for taxing profits on trading of digital assets. Along with this proposal, the finance minister has also announced that the Reserve Bank of India will work...
By Annie Domini Human rights collective, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, UP, has been meticulously documenting and putting together reports on the unprecedented theatre of violence against minorities, Dalits and women that is the state of Uttar Pradesh. As India’s most populous and perilous state, led since 2017 by...
By Divesh Kaul The United States and several industrialized countries are in the grips of a supply chain hiccup, and explaining it appears to get mired in heated ideological debates that tend to miss the impact the pandemic had on much of the world’s poor, people and households who...
By Ashis Biswas Despite the its best efforts, the Awami League-run Bangladesh Government is seemingly unable to stop selected attacks targeting an already shrinking minority population. After Hindus, it is the turn of the much smaller Buddhists community to come under fire. On Sunday night (Jan 30), Mr Visudha...
By Nantoo Banerjee India’s Economic Survey 2022 presented in Parliament on Monday somewhat lacks credibility when it comes to the GDP growth forecast of 8.0-8.5 for the coming financial year with certain riders. The projection is based on the assumption “that there will be no further debilitating pandemic related...
By Nantoo Banerjee High global oil and gas prices seem to have put the government in a fix as it is unable to pass on the increasing import price burden immediately on the country’s retail consumers mainly due to the crucial assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s largest...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak The financial year 2022-23 will be bringing hardship to the people of India, as it has been revealed in the data released by the Economic Survey 2021-22 tabled in the Parliament of India on January 31. Indian economy is expected to witness a 9.2 per...
By K R Sudhaman Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman is in an unenvious position as she gives finishing touches to general budget 2022 to be presented to Parliament on February one because there appears to be no easy solutions to manifold conflicting issues. At this juncture reigning in on macro-economic...
By Sushil Kutty The first day of Parliament’s Budget Session and our Pradhan Sevak Narendra Modi fervently wished the session will see serious and “engaging” discussions on vital issues. Does that mean Modi, the favourite politician and Prime Minister of opinion polls, will allow a “serious” discussion, engaging it...
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The controversy over the ordinance seeking to reduce the Lok Ayukta’s powers has deepened with Left-supported Independent MLA K T Jaleel leveling allegations against the Lok Ayukta. Jaleel, who was a minister in the first Pinarayi Vijayan Cabinet, had to resign following an adverse Lok...