A SCENE REPEATED 75 LAKH TIMES Picture a vegetable vendor in Lucknow. Before June 2020, if her cart was washed out in the monsoon, there was no bank that would lend her the few thousand rupees she needed to restock. The moneylender would, at 60% interest. The PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme,…
INTRODUCTION On 1st June 2026, consignments of Indian gems, agricultural produce, and pharmaceutical goods were flagged off into the Gulf. This was observed as a quiet, historical event at the ports of Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. Fortunately, this time, not a single rupee of import duty waiting on the other side. The India-Oman Comprehensive Economic…
At a busy traffic signal, surrounded by speeding scooters, autos, and impatient commuters, a man in a wheelchair moves steadily ahead. He wears a Zomato jacket, carrying not just deliveries but a lesson for an entire city. Every day, we scroll through our phones and order food with a few taps. Within minutes, a delivery…
Every food delivery, every cab ride, every quick commerce order placed in India is fulfilled by a worker who has no minimum wage guarantee, no health insurance, and no pension. That is not an oversight. It is how India’s platform economy was designed to function. That is now changing. The government has set June 22,…
One Agreement, Multiple Frontiers It is unusual for a trade deal to carry the weight of energy security, diaspora diplomacy, and strategic geography all at once. The India–Oman Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which entered into force on June 1, 2026, does all three. It was signed in Muscat on December 18, 2025, in the…
The Numbers Behind the Movement Walk down any Indian city street today and you will encounter a chai vendor, a fruit cart or a cobbler. The harshest part is they are invisible in our policies, but very essential in life. For decades, this workforce worked outside formal finance, trapped in debt cycles with local moneylenders…
India has one of the largest mandated corporate social responsibility frameworks in the world. Since 2014, companies above a certain size have been legally required to spend at least 2% of their average net profits on social causes from education and healthcare to environmental sustainability and skill development. In FY 2022-23 alone, eligible companies collectively…
The Letter She Read Three Times Ananya Singh from Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, sat the Staff Selection Commission exam twice before clearing it. She spent 14 months after clearing the exam waiting for a posting. When she finally received her appointment letter at the 19th Rozgar Mela on May 23, 2026, she read it three times…
The Loom That Built an Economy Savitaben Patel has run a khadi weaving unit in Anand, Gujarat, for 21 years now. She employs 11 women from the surrounding neighbourhood. When she started, the unit’s annual turnover was under Rs. 8 lakhs. By FY 2025-26, it crossed Rs. 34 lakhs. There was no change in what…
India is preparing to count more than 1.4 billion people once again — but this time, the process itself is changing in major ways that could affect welfare delivery, policymaking, and democratic representation across the country. Why the census matters Every ten years, India undertakes one of the largest administrative exercises in the world. Census…
