The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, 859 & 860, Anna Salai, Chennai (2025)

02/05/2025

Wetland conservation, a much-required intervention by state agencies with the support of private individuals and organisations, has gained increasing attention. In this interview to Saptarshi B awardee, Jayshree Vencatesan, talks about her journey in retrieving a wasteland in and converting it into a wetland, now knows as the Pallikaranai Marshland. She highlights the importance of using science for advocacy and the imperative on the part of researchers to use their empirical methods for the betterment of society.

Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Government of India Pallikaranai Wetlands International Climate Change World United Nations Biodiversity Environmental Media Association Environmental Working Group Environmental Conservation The Hindu

The world’s wetlands play multiple crucial but unrecognised roles – protecting biodiversity and flood control, to name but two. However, despite the 1971-Ramsar Convention, which provided the framework to conserve wetlands, there has been a gradual loss of global wetlands to activities such as u...

19/03/2025

Zoya Hasan
"Academic freedom is the freedom of inquiry, the freedom to teach, to determine who may teach and what may be taught, to research, and to disseminate and publish such findings without interference or censorship from external entities, including the state. This would include the right to dissent and the freedom to deliberate and express opinion – individual and collective – on public issues within and outside institutions of higher learning. In its complete form, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to education places academic freedom as a “fundamental right, not a professional freedom limited to education personnel or traditional institutions such as universities”.

This freedom lies at the heart of the production of knowledge. It promotes critical thinking, rationality, scientific temper, and, at the broadest level of intellectual engagement, fosters diversity. Academic development and intellectual debate is difficult without education providing access to different perspectives, a respect for expertise when one’s own knowledge is not enough, and a rich enough language to precisely describe this reality.

Right-wing regimes, irrespective of geographies, adopt familiar strategies. One is the resort to populist rhetoric that is dismissive of intellectual pursuits. Often harking back to claims of past glory, this seamlessly morphs into anti-intellectualism – a fundamental tenet of these regimes. In India, the combined impact of intolerance and anti-intellectualism is evident from the concerted attempts to impose a specific political agenda on higher education institutions."

Ministry of Education Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi Jawaharlal Nehru University - JNU New Delhi JAMIA MILIA ISLAMIA PMO India Indian National Congress All India Professionals' Congress

Academic freedom has gained a sense of urgency in India over the past decade. While there were fleeting attempts in the past, the current rightward shift in politics has placed restraints on knowledge creation in India and across other democracies. In this Essay, Zoya Hasan, Professor....

03/03/2025

Sarah Abraham
"The proposed regulatory regimen endeavours to enforce a healthy interplay by tagging a definitive legal purpose for collection of personal data, anchored in informed and transparent consent from the Data Principal. For instance, if one’s phone number is collected for the purpose of generating a bill, it cannot be used for any other purpose such as sending promotional feeds. Any use/s for purpose/s not consented to, would amount to a breach under the Act. Similarly, it is expected that only necessary data for achieving the identified purpose needs to be collected. To continue with the same example, one need not collect a phone number and an email ID to generate a bill as it may be excess data-gathering for the purpose. One can be given an option of the mode through which the invoice will be passed on to the customer and that relevant data alone can be collected for the said purpose.

Such minimal data collection tied to strict purpose articulation may be a mammoth shift from the prevalent routine adopted by many business entities, habituated to perennially collecting and exploiting customer data. Even though India’s data privacy regime had a long-laboured birth, the language in the Act and the Draft Rules now bring out the essence that the rights of the Data Principal reign supreme. As commonly attributed to the French writer, Victor Hugo: “nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come”."

Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India Personal Data Protection Commission PMO India

One of the many fallouts of societies making the transition to the digital way of life is the porous interplay between personal and public domains. The role of a state as the protector of individual rights requires it to frame laws that directly safeguard its citizens and ensure the integrity of per...

29/01/2025

R. Badri Narayan and A. Madhukumar Reddy
"A major factor for the upsurge in passenger revenues is the increased share of Second-class Mail/Express and Upper-class – that is, by 12 percentage points and 15 percentage points, respectively, between 2010-11 and 2022-23. What is most significant is that the share of Second-class ordinary passenger has plummeted from 28.5 per cent to 3.9 per cent (Table 5). In 2020, over 500 Second-class ordinary passenger trains were converted into Mail and Express trains[2]. This resulted in an average overall increase in fares for the passengers travelling by these trains by nearly 86 per cent. This was due to the substantial fare differential between Second-class, ordinary (passenger) trains and Second-class, express trains.[3]

One noteworthy feature is that between 2013-14 and 2022–23, there has been an increase in the non-suburban category of passenger coaches by 31 per cent. Two aspects are glaring here. One is the drop in the total number of passengers, despite an increase in coaches. The second is the drop in the lower-class passengers’ volume which has not bounced back even two years after the end of COVID-19 pandemic. The lower classes, that is, the Second class have seen a loss of over one billion passengers. Two factors explain this drastic change in pattern. One, the reduction of ordinary passenger trains and the increase of the Mail and Express trains. Second, when it comes to augmenting berth capacity, more priority has been given to upper class travel compared with lower classes (Table 6). This resulted in a decline in the Second class seats and berths in the total holding from 86 per cent to 72 per cent over the past decade."

Indian Railway Indian Railways भारतीय रेल Indian Railways Indian railways Ministry of Railways, Government of India Southern Railway Northern Railway Eastern Railway Headquarter Western Railway South Central Railway-S.C.R Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd Ministry of Finance, Government of India PMO India Central Railway North Eastern Railway Lucknow Division South Eastern Railway Northeast Frontier Railway East Central Railway South East Central Railway Bilaspur Div. North Western Railway EASTCOASTRailway North central railways South Western Railways - SWR West Central Railway

India’s forthcoming Union Budget presents an opportunity for policy makers to correct a chronic financial disorder haemorrhaging Indian Railways (IR) – very slender operating margins. This course correction, already much delayed, gains urgency in the wake of frequent train accidents - the latest...

10/01/2025

Avani Kapur, Sharad Pandey, and Aparajita Sharma

"Analysis of the Union governments CBS indicate that despite overall allocations for children increasing from Rs. 69,242 [6] crore in 2017-18 to Rs. 1,09,921 crore in 2024-25, Budget Estimates (BEs), the share of child-focused expenditure in the total Union budget has been declining. This share dropped from 3.2 per cent of total Union expenditure in 2017-18 to three per cent in 2019-20, and is further estimated to decline to approximately 2.3 per cent in 2024-25 BEs. In 2021-22, share was at an all-time low and stood at 1.9 per cent. Looking purely at allocations (not expenditures) as a measure of intent and prioritisation presents an even more bleak picture. Over the last decade, the share of CBS allocations in total Union expenditure declined from 4.5 per cent in 2014-15 (BE) to 2.3 per cent in 2024-25 (BE)."

Department of School Education, Madhya Pradesh Department of School Education Punjab Department of School Education, Punjab Department Of School Education, Government Of Andhra Pradesh Department of School Education, Chhattisgarh Ministry of Women & Child Development, Government of India Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India Ministry of Education

Although home to 43.6 crore children and the largest number of adolescents in the word, India has consistently fallen short in public spending for its youngest segment of citizens aged 0-18. The Union Budget for 2025 presents a pivotal opportunity for the government to prioritise investments in chil...

04/12/2024

Dr Anant Phadke
"India is a pharmaceutical paradox. It has earned for itself the name, “pharmacy of the world” as the third largest producer by volume, after China of generic formulations, and a leading manufacturer of vaccines. In the international market, the low price and high quality of Indian generic formulations make them a good choice worldwide. Yet, at home, millions are pushed into poverty every year owing to expenses on healthcare, of which payment for medicines is a major component."

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India PMO India Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation(CDSCO) Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Tamil Nadu

Policy Watch News:Why Medicines are so Costly in India

27/11/2024

Siddharth Peter de Souza
"One of the reasons for focusing on the Indian judiciary is the excitement that has emerged both among legal technology enterprises as well as the Supreme Court. Through an examination of statements made by judges, policy documents, as well as tender documents, this Policy Watch unpacks how the court views AI. It suggests pathways to a rights-based approach to AI governance at three levels..."

Supreme Court of India Supreme Court Of India Supreme Court of India Supreme Court of India Ministry of Law and Justice INDIAN LAW COMMISSION Supreme Court Bar Association, India Supreme Court Bar Association Supreme Court Bar Association Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy Alternative Law Forum Centre for Law and Policy Research PMO India

Policy Watch News:AI and the Indian Judiciary: The Need for a Rights-based Approach

29/10/2024

Barbara Harriss-White
"...Meanwhile, over this period, disregarding the COVID-19 years, India’s GDP has grown by around 7 per cent per annum, while the growth of average income per capita is roughly a percentage point less. So, what are the conclusions that may be drawn? Either that these ASUSE-24 and NSSO data show, if only by default, the success of a raft of deliberate policies to support the development of a new scale of oligopolistic corporate economy - one said by ASUSE to be vitally (one might say ‘structurally’) dependent on the informal economy for supplies and services. And one would then note that this state-subsidised big corporate sector is far from distanced from the other expressions of informality discussed earlier and entirely missed out of ASUSE-24 and NSSO statistics. Or is the reeling of the informal economy simply due to the animal spirits of the corporate sector without needing to factor in the Indian state? Or does one decide that policies to support the unincorporated/selectively incorporated/unorganised/informal economy, to regulate the unregulatable, have largely failed? If so, what did the Union Finance Ministry reckon them to have been in 2014? How and where do those 2014-policies operate outside the reach of the state? The reports are silent: policy is outside their remit. Not quite - because it is imperative to use their data and their concepts to study policy for firms operating under the ‘micro’ policy threshold."

Ministry of MSME Govn of India Ministry of Finance, Government of India PMO India

India’s informal sector remains a chronic conundrum for scholars and policymakers. It has been studied widely and deeply for decades but a clear understanding remains elusive. Policy prescriptions have been attempted but defy implementation. For scholars, its riddles range from its very definition...

19/06/2024

Andrew Wyatt
"Political pluralism came under intense pressure after 2014, even though the NDA notionally formed a coalition government. The BJP was able to push forward a majoritarian agenda and reduce the representation of minorities (Adeney 2015). Power was re-concentrated in New Delhi and the Prime Minister’s Office (Wyatt 2023). The personalisation of politics was pronounced (Jumle & Karthik KR 2024, Vittorini 2022). Independent institutions came under pressure as attempts were made to take control of economic policy (Echeverri-Gent, Sinha & Wyatt, 2021). The autonomy of State governments was encroached upon by an increasingly assertive Union government Kailash (2019). The governing regime at the centre encouraged exclusionary politics which was reflected in the combative tone of the BJP’s 2019 election campaign (Jaffrelot 2017, Naseemullah & Chhibber 2024).

Latent pluralism

Even so, I argue, India’s political pluralism was not erased after 2014. This has become even clearer with the 2024 election outcome."

Indian National Congress Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Communist Party of India (Marxist) Communist Party of India Samajwadi Party All India Trinamool Congress University of Bristol DMK - Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Aam Aadmi Party Shiv Sena Uddhav BalaSaheb Thakrey Nationalist Congress Party - Sharadchandra Pawar J&K National Conference J&K Peoples Democratic Party Chandrasekhar Azad

By all appearances, the 2024 general elections was projected – most of all by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its allies, and significant sections of the telecast media – as one that would give the BJP an overwhelming majority. Results day on June 4, 2024, offered the party a weak victory. Wit...

30/05/2024

https://www.thehinducentre.com/the-arena/current-issues/religious-amplification-versus-fraying-charisma-decoding-lok-sabha-elections-2024/article68231676.ece

Prof. Arjun Appadurai connects the dots between popular political discourse during the 2024 Election campaign, the approach of the ruling party to governance, its furtherance of its ideological agenda in a plural India, and the manner in which it has read the electorate.

Indian elections Indian Election Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Indian National Congress Communist Party of India (Marxist) Communist Party of India All India Trinamool Congress Aam Aadmi Party INDIA Alliance LSE IDEAS New York University DMK - Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) Yuva Janata Dal Biju Janata Dal Odisha Shiv Sena Jamshedpur Indian Civil Services Think-Tanks Indian Public Policy and Advocacy Forum Civil Service Exam Masterclass

As India heads towards the home run of its 18th General Election-with just the last of the seven phases to be held on June 1, the slogans, posturing, and promises held out by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) point to a shifting of what was till recently taken as solid electoral ground beneath...

10/05/2024

"Rajiv Gandhi [wrote] on the margin, “B.G., if you are unable to persuade Moosa, ask him to come and meet me.” That was the end. Nobody wants to go and meet the Prime Minister and say no. So I told the Cab. Sec. that I don’t want to meet the PM and I’ll go to Kashmir."

In memory of Moosa Raza, former civil servant and former Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir, re-plugging this 2019 interview.

Jammu and Kashmir J&K Peoples Democratic Party J&K National Conference Indian National Congress Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Communist Party of India (Marxist) Communist Party of India

The conflict in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has seen many elections. The State sends six MPs to the 543-strong Lok Sabha but 'Kashmir' adds significantly to the electoral rhetoric of political parties that battle for power. In this General Election, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pitched the ab...

The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy

02/05/2025

19/03/2025

03/03/2025

29/01/2025

10/01/2025

04/12/2024

27/11/2024

29/10/2024

19/06/2024

30/05/2024

10/05/2024

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category