Do minimum wage laws help or harm the poor? There cannot be any argument against the need to protect the vulnerable among us. But whether a law to control wages would achieve that purpose has been questioned by several top economists such as Milton Friedman and Henry Hazlitt. They contend that the minimum wage law…
Is Subsidizing Basic Amenities a good Long Term Policy? The AAP government in Delhi has already made good their promise of 700 litres of free water per day per household and halving the electricity tariffs. This policy choice has come for appreciation as well as criticism. The supporters of the policy argue that the provision…
Should India's defence production industry be fully opened to private Indian players? India is the world's largest arms importer, spending nearly 70% of our defence expenditure on purchases from foreign players and accounting for 12% of total global arms imports. The hold of the public sector over the domestic defence manufacturing industry is total, monopolistic…
How would you categorize the recent Supreme Court verdict on Section 377? The recent Supreme Court upholding of Article 377 has sparked widespread reaction across the nation. So we dedicated last week's Saturday Poll to understanding our level of acceptance for sexual minorities and to what extent the petitioners in the case were representative of…
Should male rapes be brought within the definition of rape? The pressure of public opinion brought about several welcome changes to the Indian criminal law in the 2013 amendment. It widened the scope of the definition of rape of a woman, expanded the list of sexual offences and increased the punishment for the offences. However,…
Should the police have the power to investigate an offence without any complaint being filed for it? In the last Saturday Poll on granting power to the police to investigate a crime without anyone filing a complaint, 78% of you have said that the police should have the authority to investigate offences without complaint and…
Is there a need for a supreme regulatory body for higher education in India? The higher education sector in India is regulated and standardized by the University Grants Commission (UGC) set up in 1956. Ever since, other regulatory bodies such as the AICTE, MCI and DCI have come up to further regulate colleges belonging to…
Assuming a robust IT infrastructure can be put in place, will a facility to file FIRs online be a viable solution to this problem? 61% of you said that if introduced the online FIR could help improve the accountability of police against 27% of you who felt that it would increase the burden on police…
Should the Government Snoop on Us? To this interesting question, 69% of you have said that the government has no right to snoop on its citizens, whereas 18% of you that the government could snoop on its citizens, while the remaining 13% of you have opined that the government should be allowed to snoop on…
