Commentary | Economic and Political Weekly

Despite increased onion production in India, seasonal price surges persist, harming consumers and failing to benefit the producers. This article examines supply shortages and other factors driving price hikes while proposing measures to stabilise prices using secondary data analysis.

In the context of the ongoing debates on the language and education policies of the nation state, and the political crisis that the union and state governments precariously face in its implementation, this article is an invitation to critically rethink the promise of radical equality and the question of experiential community through schooling in the context of a warring world. Questions of language, education, and caste are discussed through the ideas of contact and anti-contact zones, engaged multiplicity, and a proposal to consider schooling as a zone of symphony in a mobile world that is ready to face the sound of a trigger.

A legal guarantee of agricultural prices at the minimum support price may address only the price risk and cannot assure farmers’ incomes as the remaining risks still persist. Consequently, it is essential to address the risks and uncertainties across the entire agricultural production and marketing ecosystem with a comprehensive policy strategy equipped with the latest advances in technology and innovative farming solutions.

The article focuses on the escalating competition between the United States and China in the field of artificial intelligence. Despite US-imposed restrictions on graphics processing unit exports to China, the launch of the AI chatbot (R1) of the Chinese company, DeepSeek, seemed to have matched or surpassed the performance of US-based AI models at a much lower cost. Effectively, China’s rapid advancements in AI, supported by strong government policies and venture capital funding, are challenging US dominance in AI. The race for AI supremacy has significant implications for global productivity and competitiveness and is akin to the space race of the 1960s.

The 5-digit unique identification for first stage units in the revisit data of the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2023–24 presents s ome serious issues. The same FSU number appears in two or more states, creating problems in accurately identifying households .

Risks associated with high growth in the unsecured category of retail loans can be minimised with regulatory controls, studying socio-economic attributes of the borrower, and having some insights into the end use of funds resulting in a stable source of income.

The extant nationally determined contributions fall short of accomplishing the requisite mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, additional efforts need to be embraced to accelerate the shift towards a low-carbon economy and progressively augment the ambition level, thereby constraining the deleterious ramifications of climate change.

The decision of the Israel Supreme Court in the Movement for Quality Government delivered on 1 January 2024 bears wider comparative messages and also carries some salient takeaways for the Indian competing political parties and cadres, and citizen peoples.

The Industrial Relations Code of 2020 represents a transformative shift in India’s industrial dispute resolution system, consolidating labour courts and industrial tribunals into a single entity comprising judicial and administrative members. While the reform aims to streamline adjudication, it risks exacerbating existing inefficiencies, particularly regarding the transfer of pending cases in labour courts and industrial tribunals, the delineation of rights versus interest disputes, and the potential for further delays in deciding cases.

Classifying ecosystem services under five groups, the issues raised by ecological economists on sustainable scale, use of marginal analysis, and distributional equity are considered. The need for monetary valuation for resource allocation decisions is stressed and the problems in monetary valuation for services in each group are discussed.

In the context of a recent incident of a young chartered accountant succumbing to work pressure and the ongoing debate on weekly working hours for India’s workforce, this article discusses the intensifying overwork culture clouding white-collar jobs in India’s corporate sector and new economy. It cautions that the prevailing situation is akin to Karoshi , a unique occupational hazard and social phenomenon reported in Japan since the 1980s. This is an appropriate time to revisit and revive the much-needed legislation on the “right to disconnect.”

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led coalition has emerged victorious in the recent Jharkhand assembly elections, indicating that public memory against perceived assaults upon protective legislation is still alive. The newly elected government can make a meaningful initiative of “retribalising governance” by distributing power between the state bureaucracy and local self-governing bodies.

President Donald Trump’s “America First” trade policy poses a challenge to the global trading system that it has not faced since the end of World War II . Under the rubric of this trade policy, the US President has announced unilateral measures against several major economies, violating the WTO rules that were adopted to ensure orderly conduct of trade. President Trump announced enforcement of “reciprocal tariffs” against India, among others. He has signalled that India could be under pressure to reduce its agricultural tariffs, which could leave the country’s small farmers facing vastly unequal competition from American agri-businesses, causing immeasurable loss of rural livelihoods and incomes.

Using household-level data from 2015 to 2022, second-order evidence regarding the existence of a pink tax in the Indian context is provided. The magnitude of tax differs across states and entails a premium of roughly two to six times for the fairer sex. In absolute terms, it translates into an additional payout for women-only households of nearly $300 per year. Policy suggestions of the findings are highlighted.

Caste-diverse company boards are likely to possess a deeper understanding of the needs of varied stakeholders, thereby strengthening corporate social responsibility and human rights initiatives. Board diversity is calculated using a Blau Index based on caste affiliation, and the findings reveal a positive relationship between caste-based board diversity and corporate social values. Specifically, boards with greater caste diversity demonstrate a positive effect on corporate scores related to human rights, corporate social responsibility, and philanthropy.