By Gaurav Dwivedi It is being emphasised quite often that the infrastructure sector is a crucial driver for the Indian economy. The sector would be responsible for propelling India’s overall development and enjoys intense focus from the Government for initiating policies that would ensure time-bound creation of world-class infrastructure in the country. Infrastructure sector includes power … More Massive public-private partnership investment in infrastructure: For whom and for what?

By Moin Qazi* I vividly remember my moment of epiphany. It was a balmy afternoon in early 1996 in Warora, a small township in northern Maharashtra. I was posted as a manager of the local branch of my bank, the State Bank of India. Like any other day, there was a crowd of unruly people … More How women’s participation in financial system has facilitated India’s first urban self-help to bloom

By Venkatesh Nayak* I am placing in the public domain a copy of the meeting minutes of the Board of Governors of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which legitimised the Central Government’s initiative to withdraw the legal tender nature of currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 denomination (also known as demonetisation or DeMon for short) on 08 November, … More CIC threat of penalty compels RBI to share under RTI minutes that rubber-stamped DeMon exercise

A CRY (Child Rights and You) analysis on what is stored for children in the Interim Union Budget 2019-20: Budget for Children as a proportion of the Union Budget (interim) 2019-20 has shown a nominal increase from 3.24 percent to 3.25 percent. In absolute numbers the increase amounts to Rs. 9,358 crores, i.e., from Rs. … More Disappointing trend: Paltry amounts of educational scholarships for children from marginalized groups

A note on ‘Dalit and Adivasi Budget Analysis 2019-20’ by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR): The Budget 2019 has grossly neglected Dalit and Adivasi population.The projections of a historical increase in allocations for SC’s at 35.6% and 28% for ST’s this year hides several harsh realities which communities have to deal with … More Budget 2019-20: Schemes for SC-ST would fail to create durable assets, sustainable livelihoods

Excerpts from the chapter “Caught in the Act: Assessing the Functioning of Commercial Courts in Delhi” by Kruthika Jerome in the report “Doing Business in Delhi: A Study of Initiated and Uninitiated Regulatory Reforms”, published by the Centre for Civil Society, a Delhi-based public policy: For an effective market-based economy, there must be legal systems … More Ease of doing business? High Court of Delhi has no dedicated time for commercial disputes

Excerpts from the note “An Economic Strategy for India”*, authored, among others, by Raghuram Rajan, former Governor, Reserve Bank of India: Careful but quick policy reforms are needed for the sectors/areas that are stressed. These include agriculture, infrastructure (including power), exports and banking.  There are common themes in any revival. Typically, we need to redeploy … More There is need to guard against temptation to focus on specifics of World Bank measures