Opinion

Santosh Kumar Mohapatra Odisha Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari, presented the State Budget for fiscal 2021-22 at a critical juncture when the economy is being ravaged by the pandemic-induced recession and central assistance is dwindling. The Budget has evoked mixed reactions. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik described...

Shivaji Sarkar The GST or ‘one nation one tax’ is not the kind of El Dorado the country had promised to itself. The players are all unhappy – the States, traders, manufacturers, CAs and possibly even the Centre as it is burdened with all problems...

PSM Rao People demand satisfactory answers to these six questions to know why the petrol and diesel prices in India are again on the boil: 1) Is it because the international crude prices are skyrocketing? 2) Has the dollar price increased steeply, whereby more rupees...

Rup Narayan Das The recent development in Pondicherry Legislative Assembly has once again brought to the fore the lacunae in the anti-defection law which needs to be fixed. In a democratic parliamentary polity changing party affiliation on part of the legislator who is elected from...

Shivaji Sarkar The country is in a quandary about the privatisation of public sector banks. Amendments to the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) 1970 and 1980 are on the cards. The two laws led to bank nationalisation in two phases. Finance Minister Nirmala...

Prof. SN Misra The Union Budget 2021-22 has come in the backdrop of a severe economic crisis induced by Covid-19 pandemic. The Indian economy, whose growth was already decelerating in 2019-20, seems to be witnessing a major contraction of by 7.7%, as assessed by the...

Kaushik Basu India’s three new farm laws, enacted in September 2020 with little public or parliamentary debate, have attracted enormous global interest. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government described the measures as a gift to farmers, but farmers in several Indian states, led by smallholders in...

Melvin Durai Airports have been both a source of joy and sadness for me. The sadness has come when I’ve had to bid farewell to members of my family. It usually means being away from them for weeks, months or even years. It also means...

Anadi Naik The American drama of “Donald Trump’s impeachment” is over and he is acquitted. He is no longer the President. Therefore, the US Senate decided it has no authority to convict him. In a way the whole thing was more of a political drama...

Gordon Brown & Mark Lowcock Today, 270 million people – equivalent to the combined population of Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy – are on the brink of starvation. This number has doubled over the last 12 months. And it is the world’s children...