Policy UpdateRashi Kothari Background The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) phenomenon in India has emerged as a prominent structural shift in retail credit since 2021, accelerated by the integration of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with instant digital underwriting. Unlike…
The One Stop Centre, launched on April 1, 2015, is introduced by the Ministry of Women and Child Development through Sambal, a sub-scheme under Mission Shakti. According to the recommendations of the 12th Plan’s (2012-2017) Working Group on Women’s Agency and Empowerment and the Justice (Retd.) The Usha Mehra Commission’s report: one-stop centres were established on a pilot basis across the country. The scheme ensures access to services for women and girls facing physical, sexual, psychological, or economic abuse, irrespective of age, socio-economic or marital status, race, ethnicity, caste, or educational background.
On 21 December 2025, the President of India, Smt. Droupadi Murmu gave assent to the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025, commonly referred to as VB-G RAM G. The legislation marks one of the most significant shifts in India's rural employment policy since the enactment of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005. While MGNREGA was built around a rights-based guarantee of wage employment, VB-G RAM G seeks to reframe rural employment through a broader approach to livelihoods, asset creation, and rural transformation.
A child born in Kerala today is not always guaranteed a safe and secure start to life. Contrary to common assumptions, the primary concern is not inadequate healthcare or poor infrastructure, but the neglect and abuse that many children face within their own homes.
Asmatwali Background India’s pursuit of a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is nearly as old as the UN itself. Independent India was a founding member of the organisation in 1945, and by the 1990s, as the…
Asmatwali Background India’s climate diplomacy operates under the Paris Agreement’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) framework, through which each signatory periodically submits self-declared mitigation and adaptation targets. India’s first NDC (2015) rested on three pillars: an emissions-intensity reduction target, a non-fossil…