Parley by The Hindu

Last week, India’s strategic partner, the United States, warned of consequences for any country, including India, which conducts local currency transactions through Russia’s central bank or constructs a payment mechanism that subverts or circumvents the U.S.’s sanctions against Russia. India’s consistent neutral position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, informed by its choices, has antagonised man...

After a long pause, retail fuel prices have been inching up over the past week and have crossed the ₹100 per litre-mark again in several parts of the country, while LPG cylinder prices have been hiked by ₹50. India officially has a deregulated pricing regime, but in recent years, this practice has been put on hold during election campaigns. Here we discuss whether the fuel pricing policy is proble...

In the recent Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party won four States (Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won one (Punjab). There was a premise that this time, particularly in U.P., there was a strong resistance to the BJP’s Kamandal or religious nationalist politics from the Samajwadi Party’s social justice politics or Mandal politics. What actually...

In a bid to isolate Russia, the world has imposed some of the most wide-raging sanctions seen in recent times, as the war in Ukraine enters the eighth day. But why has the international world order failed to prevent the war? Here we discuss the implications of Russia’s war on its neighbouring country and the human cost of the war. Guests: Mohan Kumar, Professor and Dean, Office of International Af...

India has added over 10 unicorns (privately held startup companies valued at over a billion dollars) so far this year, which is a rate of nearly one every five days. This comes after a record year of new unicorns (44 in 2021), which pushed India up to the third place globally, after the U.S. and China, in the Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2021. But what exactly does a unicorn valuation mean for the l...

After a weeks-long standoff, Russia announced on February 15 that it is pulling back some of its troops from areas close to Ukraine, signalling a possible de-escalation. But at the same time, it has said that its core security concerns, particularly on NATO’s expansionary open-door policy, remain unaddressed. The crisis, has brought the post-Cold War European security architecture into sharp focus...

Governor R.N. Ravi returning the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) Bill passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly and the running battle between West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee underline again the problematic role that governors play in Indian politics. Here we discuss this issue. Guests: Gopalkrishna Gandhi, distinguished professor of history and polit...

With Omicron becoming the dominant COVID-19 variant in the country, and with its reputation of being a ‘milder’ form of the disease, there is a debate raging on what treatment methodologies are appropriate. Should we adopt a conservative line or an aggressive line to treat Omicron? The responses to SARS-CoV-2 have been changing constantly, whether in the form of treatment or social restrictions. H...

With the Union Budget 10 days away, many economic observers are now focused on what support the Centre can offer the economy, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic. Some analysts believe that the government must keep its spending in check to prevent price rise from getting out of control. Retail inflation is hovering close to 6%, while the wholesale inflation rate is in double dig...

Assembly elections are due in five States: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa. Here we discuss the national implications of these Assembly elections. Guests: Manish Tiwari , Director, Institute for Governance, Policies and Politics, New Delhi; Yamini Aiyar , Chief Executive, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi Host: Varghese K. George Read the Parley article here .

In the recent session of Parliament, the government introduced the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, to raise the age of marriage for women from 18 years to 21 years. After Opposition MPs demanded greater scrutiny of the Bill, it was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports. The government says the proposed law will ensure...

It is going to be almost a year since vaccination against COVID-19 was rolled out in India for the adult population. In the midst of this massive drive, there have been numerous challenges including vaccine hesitancy and shortage in supplies. The latest issue is that some States have come up with their own strategies to ensure wider vaccination coverage — such as by making vaccination mandatory fo...

At an event last week to mark the payment of over ₹1,300 crore to depositors in troubled cooperative banks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flaunted his government’s revamped deposit insurance scheme. The scheme, which was upgraded through the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) Amendment Bill, 2021, guarantees to compensate depositors up to a limit of ₹5 lakh within a period o...

The recent killing of 14 civilians in Nagaland’s Mon district by the Indian armed forces has put the spotlight back on the efficacy of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) of 1958. If its raison d’etre was to quell militancy and make way for the peaceful integration of insurgency-hit regions, has it served its purpose? Here we discuss the moral, legal and political questions pertaining to...

If conversations around booster shots to tackle COVID-19 were loud earlier, the emergence of the new variant, Omicron, has ensured that the clamour for booster shots has reached a fever pitch. The Health Minister stressed that India’s priority is to fully vaccinate all adults and not administer booster shots even though adequate vaccines are available. He also said that any decision on booster dos...

One of the defining economic trends of the year has been the rise of cryptocurrencies. After the Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning the Reserve Bank of India’s 2018 order banning financial institutions from enabling cryptocurrency transactions, there has been a huge rush of retail investors into cryptocurrencies. Yet, the risk of the government cracking down on private currencies has r...

The recent ICC Men’s Twenty20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates once again showed us the glorious uncertainties of cricket. The sport’s twists were evident when title-favourite India got knocked out. Immediately, the knives were sharpened on social media. Worse had happened earlier following India’s loss to Pakistan. Some fans who had celebrated Pakistan’s triumph were arrested and despicable...

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that from midnight, ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes would no longer be considered legal tender in India. The government’s stated aim was to curb corruption and the pervasion of black money in the economy, as well as the proliferation of fake currency which was also being used in terror funding. Pronab Sen discusses with Vikas Dhoot the after-effect...

Earlier this month, the Tata Group emerged as the winning bidder for Air India, the debt-laden national carrier. In this year’s Budget, the government unveiled a bold new disinvestment policy that envisages a bare minimum presence of government-owned businesses even in the strategic sectors. The government is also pursuing the sale of its entire stake in public sector firms such as BPCL, Shipping...

Last month, the Union government set up the National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) under the Companies Act. It thus delivered on its promise to set up a ‘bad bank’ to clean up the balance sheets of commercial banks. Under the new set up, the NARCL will take over loans worth almost ₹2 lakh crore from the books of commercial banks at a mutually agreed price. The NARCL will pay 15% of...

Kannur University has decided to retain lessons on the works of V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar — Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? by Savarkar and A Bunch of Thoughts by Golwalkar — in the post-graduate course, Governance and Politics, after a controversy erupted over an earlier decision to ban the texts from the syllabus. Here we discuss the larger implications of such bans. The Parley discussion was c...

With the Tamil Nadu government seeking to ‘dispense’ with the requirement for candidates to qualify in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate medical courses in the State, the controversy over NEET is alive again. T.N.’s position is rooted in the conclusions of the Justice A.K. Rajan Committee report, which claims that NEET has undermined diverse social re...

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has changed five Chief Ministers in four States this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home State, Gujarat, is the latest to see a change of guard. Are these changes a sign of anti-incumbency or are they a sign of concentration of power in the hands of the Central leadership? Here we discuss the issue. Guests: Sudheendra Kulkarni, political commentator; Harish K...

In 2017, the Supreme Court, in Independent Thought v. Union of India, refused to delve into the question of marital rape of adult women while examining an exception to Section 375 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which allows a man to force sex on his wife. Recent rulings by High Courts have been contradictory — one backed marital rape as a valid ground for divorce, while another granted anti...

Last week, the Centre released the ‘National Monetisation Pipeline’, a document listing the various public assets that will be leased out to private companies over the next four years. The government believes that monetising underutilised public assets will bring in almost ₹6 lakh crore to the government and help build new infrastructure to boost the economy. The Opposition has accused the governm...