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Yamini Aiyar

Yamini Aiyar

Articles by Yamini Aiyar

Delimitation, with a new federal compact in mind

The urgency to arrive at a political settlement on delimitation is greater now, for the issue will reignite in 2027 when the census is completed. (PTI)

Updated on Apr 28, 2026 15:25 IST

Social sectors get the short shrift as tensions play out against global churn

Despite the promise of one girl’s hostel in every district, the department of higher education has seen a small jump. (HT Archive)

Updated on Feb 1, 2026 18:52 IST

Powerlessness of the powerful bureaucrat

The difficulties experienced by our BLOs is an urgent call for reframing the debates on India’s frontline State. (PTI)

Updated on Dec 23, 2025 14:53 IST

In Bihar, the wait for a new governance model

The challenge for the new government, regardless of who wins, will lie in marrying politics with sustaining the State rather than suppressing State capacity. (PTI)

Updated on Nov 5, 2025 15:18 IST

New GST regime: A grand bargain reduced to imperfect compromise

The GST Council was set up as the site for collective decision-making on indirect taxes. Unlike other federal institutions, this was a product of the states coming together rather than the Centre controlling the purse strings and “inviting” states to the bargaining table. (@FinMinIndia X/ANI)

Updated on Oct 7, 2025 15:57 IST

Citizen-State relations and the burden of document raj

The Indian bureaucracy’s obsession with paper (files, orders, documents) is well known. Anthropologist Mathew Hull traces this to the colonial bureaucracy’s distrust of local Indian functionaries, which manifested itself in kaghaz raj or “documentary rule”. (HT Photo)

Updated on Aug 13, 2025 14:46 IST

The Emergency and politics of the body

The political and administrative zeal to comply with Sanjay Gandhi and his bulldozer gang was shaped by the nature of power he wielded over regional leaders. (HT Photo)

Updated on Jun 23, 2025 15:22 IST

DOGE lessons for the State capacity debate

DOGE is a cautionary tale on the misuse of efficiency as a value proposition to direct State power towards the pursuit of elite interests. (AFP)

Updated on Jun 3, 2025 14:09 IST

How best to resolve the federal deadlock

The representational dilemma will only be resolved when the consequences of persistent inequality are acknowledged, and new institutional arrangements debated in this context (PTI)

Updated on Mar 12, 2025 13:52 IST

Niti Aayog 2.0 in the time of global churn

New Delhi: A man walks past Niti Aayog, in New Delhi, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (PTI Photo/Vijay Verma) (PTI10_23_2024_000173B) (PTI)

Updated on Jan 14, 2025 14:50 IST

The disenchantment with the secular ideal

The violence in Sambhal after the survey team arrived in late November is just a fleeting glimpse of what could lie ahead. . (PTI Photo) (PTI)

Updated on Dec 17, 2024 15:42 IST

Lessons in democracy from the US elections

For Trump’s voters, his questioning of the electoral process is a “democratic corrective” (Bloomberg)

Updated on Nov 21, 2024 14:38 IST

The elusive quest for jobs in Viksit Bharat

New Delhi, India - Aug. 3, 2018: Candidates register for jobs during Job Fair organised by Delhi Government especially for differently abled people, at Employment Exchange Office, Pusa, in New Delhi, India, on Friday, August 3, 2018. (Photo by Sanchit Khanna / Hindustan Times) (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

Updated on Jul 23, 2024 16:33 IST

Needed, a reframing of the debate on jobs

FILE PHOTO: A worker checks sift joints used for cement filtration at its manufacturing factory in the industrial area of Kolkata June 12, 2012. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri (INDIA - Tags: BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT)/File Photo (REUTERS)

Updated on Jul 16, 2024 15:20 IST

Mandate 2024: The mirror has cracked

Patna, Bihar, India -May .01, 2024: Voters standing in queue for casting votes at a polling booth during seventh and last phase of Lok Sabha election at Danapur Diyara in Patna, Bihar, India, Saturday,01, 2024. (Photo by Santosh Kumar/ Hindustan Times)

Updated on Jun 4, 2024 19:52 IST

Viksit Bharat vs Garib Kalyan, a balancing act

People watch the live telecast of the interim budget 2024 by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, at a showroom in Gurugram, on Thursday.

Updated on Feb 1, 2024 16:53 IST

Beyond Silkyara smiles, gloomy state of workers

Workers rescued from the tunnel. (X)

Updated on Dec 1, 2023 18:36 IST

A public servant or his master’s voice?

Ahead of the 2019 polls PM Modi launched the Gram Swaraj Abhiyaan.

Updated on Nov 6, 2023 18:12 IST

Simultaneous polls may hurt federalism

Voters stand in line during polling for the seventh phase of the West Bengal assembly elections in Kolkata.

Updated on Sep 5, 2023 16:21 IST

Modernity mandates can’t be exclusionary

Despite increasing institutional births, the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey found that nationally, around 11% of births still happen outside formal facilities

Updated on Aug 8, 2023 16:33 IST

Raj laws can spur a new welfare model

Rajasthan’s laws are a reminder of the centrality of social movements in shaping welfare.

Updated on Jul 26, 2023 16:43 IST

The steel frame needs some training reform

220 million hopeful candidates applied for central government jobs between 2014 and 2021. Of these around 720,000 qualified.

Updated on Jul 3, 2023 16:44 IST

Keep India’s delicate federal balance intact

Sardar Patel’s logic for the IAS was powerful, which would ensure adequate state representation in policy decisions taken by the Union

Updated on May 26, 2023 11:39 IST

Grassroots democracy needs urgent attention

As concerns over the state of democracy grow, the battle for democratic local governments is even more urgent.

Updated on Apr 23, 2023 14:10 IST

In India, is a guaranteed funded pension feasible?

For most of India, pensions are illusory, available only to formal, permanent, largely government, employees. Before 2004, it was their privilege, baked into the social compact with the State (Arun Mondhe/HT ARCHIVE)

Updated on Apr 2, 2023 15:51 IST

The structural constraints that hinder reform in India

The table reports on the actual approval and release of funds to states.

Updated on Mar 9, 2023 14:32 IST

Welfare spending cut could pose significant livelihood challenges

Welfare has now been relegated to the margins of government spending (Hindustan Times)

Updated on Feb 2, 2023 02:12 IST

Celebrate civic political action for its own sake

Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement, the Chipko movement, and the movement for a gamut of rights (information, work, food), to name a few, have played a crucial role in entrenching liberal norms and prising open spaces for rooting substantive democracy (HT PHOTO)

Updated on Dec 30, 2022 15:41 IST

Reframing policymaking to tackle rural inflation

From dams to rural roads and electricity distribution, existing infrastructure in rural India urgently needs maintenance.

Updated on Nov 2, 2022 15:26 IST

India’s key role in 21st century non-alignment

India’s stature and the call for renewed leadership emanates from the power of her example. It is the resilience of the Indian democratic project that distinguishes India as a non-western global leader like no other.

Updated on Aug 24, 2022 15:35 IST

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