The Union budget of India (2023-24) marked by ‘Growth, Green, Digital’ has been seriously debated over last 10 days after its presentation in the Parliament of India on 1-2-2023. The mainstream media has applauded ‘fiscal prudence’, massive investment infrastructure, cutting of fiscal subsidies, policy of disinvestment from public sector enterprises and tax cuts for ‘hard working’ middle class
While we are all proud of India's democracy, few of us actually bother to fund any political party. We are content to let parties fund themselves by mobilizing funds as they traditionally have from the time of the freedom struggle, when industrialists like G D Birla used to fund the Congress. But most such funding was informal, with no structured, transparent disclosure of who funded which party to what extent.
Citizenship has evolved from the city-states of ancient Greece and perhaps from the republics or ganas of ancient India to finally emerge as the cornerstone of representative democracy in the twentieth century. Today the idea of citizenship is undergoing several transformations. Mindful of its long history, we need to ensure that our re-imaginations help us escape the past and embrace new futures.
It is estimated that there are more than one crore (10 million) delivery agents in the country today. They are not workers or employees; they are labelled as ‘delivery partners’ and ‘executives’. (Soon, they will be called GMs and MDs!). No labour laws cover them; they are treated as ’self-employed’. They have no stipulated working conditions. And, they still do not make minimum wages prescribed by law. These ‘aspirational’ youth of India earn less than Delhi’s minimum wages of 18-19,00 rupees per month for semi-skilled category. And, they have to own their own two-wheeler to earn this!
Given the potential of rogue pharma exporters to kill off Indian pharmaceutical companies’ global potential, pharma exports must be brought under an export control regime of the kind used to regulate WMDs
Air India is a commercial airline, albeit newly privatized. Boeing, Airbus, GE, Rolls Royce, and CFM International are all commercial operations. Yet this commercial deal among commercial entities has excited three heads of states, of the US, France, and India, to make joyous announcements, video presentations, and long-distance phone calls attesting to mutual cooperation. Business, after all, does seem to be the business of governments, especially when it is big enough.
Most recent Indian largesse was and is being witnessed in Indian response to the devastating earthquakes in Turkiye and Syria. Human lives do matter.