'In an indictment of the Central Board of Direct Taxes’s (CBDT) functioning, a top Indian Revenue Service (IRS) official has accused Pramod Chandra Mody, chairman of India’s top tax administration body, of giving an unlawful directive to bury a “sensitive case” involving “serious allegations”. In what is an equally incriminating charge against the Narendra Modi government, the official said that the CBDT chairman tried to entice her to fall in line by claiming that he had secured the top position only because of a “successful search” operation against an opposition leader.
'On October 2, the government of India is due to announce that the country is “open defecation free”, based on a central-government programme that provides funds to build toilets. Here is a climate change perspective on why this is not just a lie but also makes open defecation hard to eradicate. There is good reason to suggest that the government’s numbers are faulty and that building toilets is not enough. Others have argued this point and have done the research. I want to look at how, even if the government’s data was right, it is a failure.
'It seems as though the Narendra Modi government is making an all-out effort to save controversial Indian Police Official (IPS) official Rakesh Asthana, as the Delhi high court deadline to complete the bribery investigation against him – September 30 – looms. On May 31, the high court had given the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) a four-month deadline... Displaying unusual alacrity, the government has moved out or changed all four officials handling the Asthana probe. This includes additional director M.N. Rao, who was removed on July 5...'
'Tapan Misra, the former chief of the Space Applications Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who was sidelined last year by incumbent chairman K Sivan, has penned a Facebook post tacitly criticising the organisation’s leadership and work culture after the Chandrayaan 2 surface mission failed earlier this month. The post is available to read in full below. One of Sivan’s first decisions as the new chairman of ISRO, in mid-2018, had been to demote Misra from directorship of the SAC to being the chairman’s advisor, a role that carries no executive authority.
'...there is a case for autonomy [of central banks], for sure. And that autonomy is important for all institutions, and that autonomy in the central bank in India was dead, certainly, in November 2016, when demonetisation was announced. Because it was very clear at that time that this was a decision taken against the wishes of the RBI, imposed on the RBI, which then had to implement something, which it did very badly. Which it had absolutely no knowledge of, and no preparation for.
'Our elected representatives across the board abhor the Right to Information Act. For years they’ve been assaulting the law with different amendments, rules and provisions to weaken it and deny information to citizens. The latest assault is happening right now in Parliament and it seems unlikely that anyone can do anything about it. But, at the very least, maybe we can talk about it!... First, to give some context on what the heck is going on, a quick recap on what the RTI does and why elected folks are scared of it.
'On February 3, 2019, Smriti Irani declared: “The day ‘pradhan sevak‘ Narendra Modi ji decides to retire, I will also leave Indian politics.” The statement is remarkable on many levels. Why would a 42-year old politician, already a Union minister with cabinet rank, and with bright political prospects, sacrifice her career just because the numero uno of her party, 26 years her senior, will hang his boots eventually? This is the same Irani who had threatened to go on a fast-unto-death if Modi did not resign over Gujarat riots.
'Contrary to the claims of highest ever allocation to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the social security scheme that aims to guarantee the right to work is facing severe fund crisis – with state governments left with no funds to pay workers. From October 2018 to February 1, no Fund Transfer Orders (FTOs) were processed due to non-availability of funds for MGNREGA, forcing workers to wait for wages for months, even when the Act promises that wages will be given within 7 to 15 days of work.
'As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government gets ready to present its final Budget in a few days, here is a look at one of the key factors in fiscal calculations – debt. The combined debt of central and state governments stands at a staggering Rs. 97 lakh crore, up 59% since the end of March 2014, months before the BJP government took over in June 2014. The scale of this debt can be imagined by distributing it over the whole population (see chart below). This works out to Rs. 73,966 per person in 2017-18 as compared to Rs. 54,229 in 2014-15...
'The Narendra Modi government on Tuesday appointed former finance ministry official Shaktikanta Das as governor of the Reserve Bank of India, a day after former central bank boss Urjit Patel resigned abruptly. Das, a former finance secretary and current member of the 15th finance commission, shot into the public spotlight in late 2016 when he became the bureaucratic face of demonetisation in the weeks following the note-ban decision... In February 2017, he gave a speech that predicted that the positive effects of demonetisation would be felt from April 2017.
