THE recently published National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report brought into notice the issue of suicides by daily wage workers. The NCRB has started categorising daily wage workers in the ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides’ data since 2014. Though the number of suicides by daily wage workers has been continuously increasing since then, this was widely covered only this year.

ANKHI Das, a name, which all of a sudden became popular in the country continues to make headlines in the media. Public policy chief of Facebook for South and Central Asia, Das is known for her proximity to the BJP and also to the point how she shaped Facebook’s policy, more aligned to the BJP. Her remarks do not just limit to this alignment brought about to win the general elections in 2014 but go deeper to the ideological hostility to which she is wedded/ linked to. And that ideological leaning provides her a fitting joint to be with the BJP.

PMCARES, a private trust fund created by the prime minister, right since the inception is in strong criticism not just by the opposition parties but by all those who believe in transparency of public funds. Nobody knew for what and how will this money be utilised, which quintessentially was supposed to be spent to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic in India. Humongous amount was generated under this fund and a lot of money was collected through coercion by virtually forcing the government employees including the medics to shed a part of their salary.

ANY worthwhile policy making has to start with an objective assessment of the existing ground reality. Proceeding from this, discerning the challenges, the policy ought to set out a roadmap for overcoming them. However, despite the PM’s loud claims that NEP 2020 was preceded by intense study and research for last 3-4 years, no data or reference to these appear in the policy document! Therefore, the inescapable conclusion is, more than anything else, this is a vision statement.

AS many as 109 children were sexually abused every day in India in 2018 according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). 39,827 cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) were reported in that year. But on an average, the conviction rate in child rape cases is less than 30 per cent and pendency of cases is as high as 80-85 per cent. India has come a long way in enacting legislations and legal measures to handle cases of child sexual abuse. But the crimes continue unabated.