India cannot afford to cut its economic links with China since imports from its northern neighbour dominate sections of the economy, especially in electronics and pharmaceutical intermediates. This is the result of the neglect of domestic industry for decades.
Sanjib Baruah's new book is 'a prescient ledger' of what Northeast India has become and at the same time 'a cautionary tale' of where muscular policy may take us in the rest of India.
The unequal labour market in India would have seen a widening of disparities after Covid-19 struck. Those at the bottom, with few skills, limited education & without security, would have been affected the most; they are the ones in immediate need of support.
'For women, prisons are built with stones of "patriarchal" law. It is time to campaign against incarcerated pregnancies and custodial childbirths as making for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of women.'
The policy in the census of ‘rationalising’ languages has a debilitating impact on the speakers of unrecognised languages; they are condemned not to access education in their own languages.
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In the wake of Covid-19, racial discrimination towards people from the North East has acquired a new edge. The lack of cultural understanding in mainland Indian communities has always manifested itself in slurs and attacks that have increased and not reduced.
Taking stock of two decades of health reforms in India
A survey of reforms in health policies in India over the past two decades – actually a string of privatisation policies – indicates that we have moved away from and not towards Universal Health Coverage. What then needs to be done?
Deepening racial inequality in the US is the fundamental reason for the recent widespread protests. African American economic progress has been worse than that of Dalits in India. Any optimism about the outcome has to confront these features of US society.
At the dawn of independence, the liberal traditions that underpin a constitutional democracy were absent in India. How did the framers of the Constitution deal with this challenge?
Did my Shamsi clan “come” or “convert”? What qana’at made my family remain in India after Partition? Our lives are a confection of history and happenstance. As belonging is questioned and citizenship interrogated, perhaps these personal histories will suffice.
The social & environmental problems of a rapidly urbanising India were anticipated a century ago by the Scottish town planner Patrick Geddes. It may be time to redeem & rehabilitate Geddes’ themes of respect for nature, democracy & architectural traditions.
Multiple disasters and mass catastrophes have been on display in the migrant crises following the Covid-19 lockdown. In its light, India’s constitutionalism might be called ‘Exodus Constitutionalism’, a development that threatens to devalue citizenship.
For more than five years the Government has been lukewarm towards the MGNREGA. Yet, in the midst of the ongoing slowdown this very programme is a potentially effective instrument that it can and should use to address the economic emergency in rural areas.
The surge of Hindu nationalism in India can be seen as a revolt of the upper castes against the egalitarian demands of democracy. The Hindutva project is a lifeboat for the upper castes in so far as it promises to restore the Brahminical social order.
"Tiffin" is a snack that keeps you going until the next meal. Tiffin also conveys the sense of an occasion where you engage in friendly conversation and discussion. In that spirit, “Tiffin”-- also linked to our acronym TIF -- is a new section that will offer articles covering topics other than “contemporary issues”.
