Monetary policy, procurement law and decentralisation in public health

In seven of the recent eight months, headline inflation has been outside the two-to-six per cent range that is required in the RBI Act. I wrote a column in the Business Standard today, analysing recent inflation performance and thinking about monetary policy in the pandemic.

Procurement is a foundational process which is performed by all arms of the state, where state capacity is required. In an article on The Leap Blog on 19 August, Diya Uday and Shubho Roy ask Does India need a public procurement law? This reasoning involves `isomorphic mimicry’, `invisible infrastructure’ and `load-bearing capacity’.

There is fresh interest in public health, in the light of the pandemic. In an article, The three tiers of government in public health, on The Leap Blog on 17 August, K. P. Krishnan shows how the Constitution of India shapes and circumscribes the role of union, state and local government in constructing state capacity for public health.