India’s population is growing at a faster rate. India overtakes China as the world's most populous country. Presently, the Indian food system faces many challenges ranging from increasing pressure on natural resources (soils, water, air, forests) to climate change to fragmenting land holdings, increasing urbanization, and high rates of malnutrition amongst children.
Funding politics directly by the public, with every paisa automatically accounted for, would make parties accountable to the people.
A unified, efficient market platform integrated with major mandis of the country, coupled with the onboarding of service providers and stakeholders of the agricultural commodity value chain, has the potential to boost farmers’ income by ensuring better crop prices through a transparent price discovery and quality certification. Such a platform can equally benefit the service providers, traders and others.
SENIOR officials of the government are certainly very different from quantum particles. Yet, both have a common quality: their state changes when they are observed — the very act of observation induces the change. Now that the Supreme Court has ordered the authorities of north Indian states to put an end to stubble burning, leaving it to them to figure out how, we can expect to see some action. Here are a few suggestions as to how to act on the court directive without creating a conflict with farmers, who need to clear their fields of the crop residue in order to plant the next crop.
“Under the system of Chaturvarnya, the Shudra is not only placed at the bottom of the gradation but he is subjected to innumerable ignominies and disabilities so as to prevent him from rising above the condition fixed for him by law. Indeed until the fifth Varna of the Untouchables came into being, the Shudras were in the eyes of the Hindus the lowest of the low. This shows the nature of what might be called the problem of the Shudras. If people have no idea of the magnitude of the problem it is because they have not cared to know what the population of the Shudras is. Unfortunately, the census does not show their population separately. But there is no doubt that excluding the Untouchables the Shudras form about 75 to 80 per cent of the population of Hindus.”
Thus writes Dr B.R. Ambedkar in his seminal work, Who Were the Shudras: How They Came to be the Fourth Varna in the Indo-Aryan Society (1946), where he situates the degraded socio-cultural position of the Shudras (almost all the individual caste groups known as Other Backward Classes (OBC) in constitutional parlance today as well as some others belong to this historical-social category mentioned in both historical and literary texts).
With a primary focus on consumer protection, the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 created an extensive structure for managing the environment of online business. It is a crucial step towards regulating the e-commerce industry and aims to protect consumers' rights and interests in the online market. These regulations cover a broad range of clauses, such as those pertaining to data protection, openness, product quality, and dispute settlement. They work to make sure that e-commerce platforms uphold fairness, accountability, and moral standards while giving customers convenient ways to voice complaints. The adoption of these regulations is in keeping with a larger global trend to bolster consumer protection laws in the quickly developing field of Internet commerce. These rules signify a significant shift towards bolstering consumer rights and confidence in online shopping, acknowledging the growing importance of e-commerce in contemporary consumer markets.
The Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI) Centre for Work and Welfare has emerged as a powerhouse of research, analysis, and advocacy for policies that promote employment generation, sustainable livelihoods, and social security measures. IMPRI brings together thought leaders, policymakers, academics, and practitioners to deliberate on pressing issues through its research papers, policy dialogues, and interactive forums. By conducting rigorous research and offering evidence-based insights, IMPRI significantly shapes impactful policies that address real-world challenges.