OMICRON, a new SARS-CoV-2 strain, first detected in the Gauteng province of South Africa, has been acknowledged by WHO as a “variant of concern”. Already, cases have been reported from other countries, making clear that Omicron is unlikely to be contained…

THE MGNREGS was introduced by the UPA-I government despite opposition from the neo-liberal lobby within it, owing inter alia to the active intervention of the Left which was supporting that government from outside. It was restrictive from the beginning: it…

THE world is far more interconnected than ever before, with 60 per cent of the world’s population connecting to the internet. With wireless connectivity and cheap smartphones, the number of Indians connecting to the internet today is more than 70 per cent…

THE pandemic alas is not yet over, but there are no economic disruptions in the current fiscal year in the form of lockdowns or workers’ absence. The economy’s performance therefore can no longer be attributed to the prevalence of the pandemic; whatever it…

THE very day, December 11, when the Indian finance ministry spuriously claimed a robust recovery in the post-pandemic Indian economy, newspapers carried news of an acceleration in the US inflation rate. The inflation rate in November 2021 over November of…

THERE is much discussion these days on whether to introduce booster shots in India, both generally in response to the Covid pandemic and in the specific context of the Omicron variant of the virus. So far, recommendations for boosters by many experts are…

OMICRON, a new SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern, has rapidly overtaken all other variants in the new waves of Covid-19 cases that are emerging in South Africa, the UK, the European Union and the US. More worrying is that Omicron is able to infect those who have…

IN a recent report the People’s Commission on the Public Sector and Public Services has rightly drawn attention to the sheer un-constitutionality of the Modi government’s plan to privatise en masse the assets of the public sector. The constitution of the…

IN the United States there are still four million persons who remain unemployed compared to before the pandemic; and yet the Biden administration’s attempt to stimulate the economy has already run into a crisis with the re-emergence of inflation not just…

THE current crisis in Europe of spiralling gas prices, coupled with a cold snap, brings out that the transition of any part of the world to green energy is not going to be easy. It also brings out the complexity in such a transition, that energy is not simply…

IN colonial times, the peasantry had to borrow from private moneylenders. According to Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee reports, these moneylenders in turn borrowed from commercial banks. But while disbursing credit to the peasants and charging exorbitant…

THE verdict on Ellen Holmes, the CEO of Theranos, who was tried for fraud, was guilty. Theranos was a company set up by Holmes and her former partner Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani and had promised to revolutionise testing. Their advanced biotech equipment—they claimed—would…

FROM the very beginning when the Covid-19 pandemic struck India in early 2020, many questions have arisen about decision-making by the union government on Covid control measures, especially about the extent to which measures instituted have been based on…

ONE of the most important arguments advanced by John Maynard Keynes, the renowned economist, was that the operation of financial markets under capitalism is deeply flawed. Such markets are intrinsically incapable of distinguishing between “enterprise” where…