The irony of a state government demanding fiscal autonomy from New Delhi while starving its own local bodies of both funds and decision-making authority is hard to miss — and harder still to defend.
Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, and Odisha are large states that receive a lot of money from the Union. All of them have governments headed by the BJP or its allies.
Existing projects that are to be implemented by the states under their budgets should not be financed through MGNREGS outlays. Now, the lack of monitoring can result in such use.
South India's situation is unlike any in large federal unions across the world. US, UK, China, Germany, and Spain correct their fiscal imbalances through tax policy. India is making it worse.
The US and Israel’s assassinations of Iranian leadership ended up bestowing martyrdom on those killed. Shias saw the deaths as a continuity of martyrdom from the Battle of Karbala.
India’s fast-growing data centre sector may strain state electricity networks; Central Electricity Authority has urged Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu to boost capacity.
Theaterisation, which aims to divide the forces into three theatres with specific areas of responsibility, will become the single most far-reaching reform that the Indian military has witnessed since independence.
China patiently invested capital, skill and technology in coal gasification. Unlike it, we won’t move from words to action. As crude prices decline, we lose interest.
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