A striking aspect of the 24 per cent decline in GDP in the first quarter of 2020-21 compared to the previous year’s first quarter is the decline by 10.3 per cent in public administration, defence and other public services. This…
The GDP growth in the first quarter (April-June) of 2020 over the first quarter of the previous year has been minus 24 per cent according to preliminary official estimates. But most knowledgeable people believe that even this is an underestimate…
Since the totality of speech consists of both what is said and what is not said, for understanding the new National Education Policy (NEP) we have to look both at its words and its silences. Then we cannot escape the…
When the Goods and Services Tax was introduced, and the states virtually gave up the power to levy indirect taxes which they had enjoyed under the constitution, the centre had solemnly promised that it would compensate them for a period…
by Subho Ranjan Dasgupta Question 1 In one of her recent lecture, eminent Historian Romila Thapar, said that the Indian Republic is teetering on the border line. On one side of the border stands the secular Indian Republic and on…
There is a commonly-held view that the current crisis in capitalism, which has resulted in a massive output contraction and increase in unemployment, is because of the pandemic; and that once the pandemic gets over, things will go back to…
The BJP as we know is a Hindu-supremacist party. It is the political front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a fascistic organisation which believes in establishing a Hindu rashtra. Though the BJP itself cannot openly espouse this vision because of…
The tragic events unfolding in Lebanon are a portent of things to come for the entire third world. Lebanon, a small, highly import-dependent country, has been in the grip of an economic crisis for quite some time as the world…
It is a common practice all over the world that when those incarcerated face a threat to life, the authorities send them home. Even Benito Mussolini had been forced by an international campaign to shift the Italian Communist Leader Antonio…
In a document like the New Education Policy, one must distinguish platitudes from new provisions, including within the latter even the dropping of old platitudes. Thus phrases like “education is a public good”, “6 per cent of GDP should be…
