The Parliament must take cognizance of the far-reaching impact of the Data Protection Law and lay the foundation of a robust institution that is transparent, competent, independent, predictable and not-overzealous in its rulemaking.
Social registries can help leverage technology to fix delivery gaps, payment leakages, coordination failures, and other inefficiencies that plague our current systems of welfare delivery.
In the absence of a strong push from the civil society, our democratic institutions by themselves have no intrinsic incentive to reform. With the result that in India’s gravest hour, we had no effective mechanism to hold a sitting government accountable.
While there have been some small announcements for women in the budget, women’s core concerns over food and nutrition, employment and livelihoods, and prevention of violence and safety after a year of unprecedented hardship need a further boost.
A continued focus on land and property rights is important — these cross-cutting issues not only impact the growth of India’s economy but play an important role in the lives of all Indians.
To make substantial strides in women’s economic empowerment, it is clear that a gender lens needs to be incorporated at every stage—from policy design to data collection for monitoring and evaluation.
While the need for a centrally administered UEGS has been acknowledged by the central Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, funds availability remains a constraint.
More women are voting than before, and this rise in political agency could mean that their rights and issues are no longer an afterthought for policymakers.
The rationale for government intervention seems unclear. Even if there are positive externalities to data, the proposed NPD framework may impose significant costs on the whole digital economy
India’s privacy law must balance the rights of children with online safety.
India does not spend enough on its young people. If anything, the pandemic has highlighted the need to build the resilience of the youth and place their concerns at the centre stage of policy discussions.
Mandating scrutiny for every bill is not a big ask. It is necessary to uphold the quality of legislation. A strong committee system is probably the only way to ensure Parliament’s relevance in the law-making process.
