Parley by The Hindu

Recently, the Union government formed a three-member Commission of Inquiry headed by former Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, to examine whether Scheduled Caste (SC) status can be accorded to Dalits who have over the years converted to religions other than Sikhism and Buddhism.  Here we discuss the question.  Guests: Sukhadeo Thorat, former chairman of the University Grants Commis...

Earlier this year, the United Nations published data to show that India would surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2023. According to the 2018-19 Economic Survey, India’s demographic dividend will peak around 2041, when the share of the working age population is expected to hit 59%.  Here we discuss whether India needs a population policy.  Guests: Poonam Muttreja, Executive Direc...

On October 1, when India abstained from voting at the United Nations Security Council on a draft resolution against Russia for conducting referendums and annexing four regions of Ukraine, it was a reminder of New Delhi’s precarious tightrope walk on ties with Moscow. In the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and in the face of Western sanctions against Russia, India has continued to carry on oil and d...

Last week, the rupee weakened against the dollar past the 81-mark to a record low. In recent months, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been intervening in the forex market to smoothen the decline. With the RBI dipping into its kitty for this purpose, Indian foreign exchange reserves have fallen by about $94 billion in 12 months to about $545 billion until mid-September.  How much more forex can...

The Congress is set for elections for the post of party president. Since 1998, barring her son Rahul Gandhi’s two-year term in the interim, Sonia Gandhi has been party president. This has revived the debate on whether internal elections should be mandated for all political parties.  Here we discuss the current situation and what can be done. Host: Sobhana K Nair Guest: S.Y. Quraishi, former Chief...

Earlier this week, the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, questioned the Central government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, arguing that it works against the interests of Indian consumers. In doing so, he revived the larger debate on the government’s efforts to promote the country’s manufacturing sector through subsidies, and on its relative importance vis-a-...

Over the years, there has been a raging debate over the need for children to have their mother tongue as the medium of instruction in schools. While educationists have emphasised the importance of learning in the mother tongue to enhance a child’s learning and overcome glaring inequities, there has been an equally steady demand for English-medium schools in several States.  Here we discuss why and...

The Central government reasserted last week that its policy on the Rohingya refugees in India, who it calls “illegal foreigners”, will not change. It did so while denying a tweet by Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri which said the government will move the Rohingya refugees living in Delhi to flats meant for economically weaker sections. Denying this, the Home Ministry said t...

While hearing a petition demanding the de-recognition of political parties that promise “irrational freebies” to voters, the Supreme Court recently drew attention to the substantial fiscal cost of freebies. The court noted that a legislation banning freebies is not advisable, but at the same time called for a balance between welfare measures and loss to the public exchequer. The Supreme Court’s ob...

The demand for medicine to be taught in languages besides English has been made repeatedly over the years, and was reiterated most recently by Union Home Minister Amit Shah when he said instruction in medicine, engineering and law should be made available in Indian languages. Over the years, academicians have considered the advantages, demerits and challenges of such a move.  Here we explore the v...

The rupee’s steep slide to the 79-to-a-dollar range is bound to impact importers, widen the current account deficit (CAD) and spur the value of India’s external debt. But how much of a problem is this going to be for the Indian economy, given that the rest of the world is facing economic challenges as well?  Here we discuss whether the declining rupee presents a crisis or an opportunity.

On July 20, acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected the President of Sri Lanka. The Indian government, which held an all-party meeting on the crisis in the island nation, said that “fiscal prudence and responsible governance” are the lessons to be learnt from the crisis in Sri Lanka and that there should not be a “culture of freebies”. India promised to be supportive of Sri Lanka, which...

At a time when the Central government says it is liberalising India’s economy, its economic policymaking on the external front has been marked by rising protectionism. With policies such as Atmanirbhar Bharat, there seems to be a conscious effort to protect the domestic economy from foreign competition. This raises questions on whether the government’s external protectionism is compatible with its...

In April 2020, just after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Roger Federer floated the idea of merging the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the governing bodies of men’s and women’s tennis, respectively. Billie Jean King founded the WTA in 1973 after failing to persuade the men to create a joint venture. Nearly five decades on, the idea to projec...

On June 9, 2022, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) notified guidelines for ‘Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022’. The guidelines, brought in with immediate effect, are applicable to all forms of advertisements. While the Consumer Protection Act of 2019 does have a provision on misleading advertisements, the CCPA can impose a p...

 On June 14, the government announced the Agnipath scheme which fundamentally transforms the process of recruitment of soldiers, sailors and airmen into the three services. Agniveers, the recruits, will be employed for four years, after which up to 25% of them will be selected for enrolment in the regular cadre, while the rest will be given a certain amount of money and be shown avenues to get bac...

Is COVID-19 now approaching an endemic stage? While the common interpretation of endemicity is ‘this is a disease we no longer have to be worried about’, what does it actually mean in epidemiological terms and what are the concerns for public health for the future? Will the infection spread at more predictable rates and will it perhaps become more manageable? Here we discuss the science behind the...

Over the last month, the government has banned the export of wheat and imposed quantitative restrictions on outbound sugar shipments. The wheat export ban came within days of a push to enhance India’s wheat supplies to the rest of the world after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The move came in the midst of persistently high inflation, spurred by rising food and fuel prices, and concerns about a low...

In October 2021, Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested in Mumbai by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a drug racket case. Now, after many twists and turns in the case, on May 28, he and five others were given a clean chit by a special investigation team from Delhi. Besides highlighting the torment suffered by him and his family, Aryan Khan’s case also threw the focus on the countless...

The Governor’s powers of pardon or remission under Article 161 of the Constitution have been in the spotlight with the Supreme Court judgment ordering the release of A.G. Perarivalan, one of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. In 2018, the then Tamil Nadu cabinet had recommended to the Governor that all the seven convicts be released. The Raj Bhavan sat on the recommendation...

After weeks of protests, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa stepped down this month, but that is not the only big political non-electoral change in the neighbourhood in 2021-22. Just a month ago, it was Pakistan; a year ago, it was Nepal. Power changed hands through more coercive means in Myanmar and Afghanistan. Their polities have yet to settle down. How should India react to these chan...

A fortnight ago, Wimbledon decided to deny entries to players from Russia and Belarus for the 2022 edition of the tournament. Coming as it did against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Wimbledon said it was to thwart any attempt from the Russian regime to “derive any benefits from the involvement of Russian or Belarusian players with The Championships”. Many other sports, such as fo...

In an address delivered at the Delhi School of Economics last week, N.K. Singh, the chairperson of the 15th Finance Commission, warned about how the race to provide freebies to voters could be a “quick path to fiscal disaster.” He also noted that freebies could be harmful for the long-term economic growth of the country and emphasised the need to distinguish between productive and unproductive for...

The number of fresh cases of COVID-19 in the country has been going up steadily in Delhi and Maharashtra, considered bellwether States in the country, as far as the pandemic goes. Is this an indication of a further COVID-19 wave in India, and what are the precautions that people and health systems have to take in order to avoid devastation on a scale as was seen during the second wave. Here we dis...

India’s inflation, which is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), has stayed above the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s upper tolerance limit of 6% for three months running. The central bank’s monetary policy committee decided to hold benchmark interest rates earlier this month, choosing to remain accommodative “while focussing on withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that inflation remains wit...