Dear Express Explained Reader, Tomorrow, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present in Parliament what has the potential to be the most consequential Budget in recent years. A once-in-a-century pandemic has dealt severe blows to the economy that was struggling even before the virus hit and, the current encouraging signs of recovery notwithstanding, the full extent of the damage in terms of jobs lost and livelihoods destroyed will be clear only gradually. As we wait for the Budget, I would like to point you to two pieces by two of India’s smartest analysts and commentators on issues related to finance and the economy: This week, investment banker Neelkanth Mishra summed up the current state of the economic recovery, and flagged the concerns going forward; also, what you should be looking out for as the Finance Minister speaks, and his prescription on what her Budget should be looking at. A couple of weeks previously, capital markets expert Nilesh Shah wrote an open letter to Sitharaman listing a dozen ways to raise funds to finance the recovery from the pandemic. It contained some bold and innovative ideas that are admittedly not easy to implement — but Shah broke each one of them down, and explained how several of them could be game changers in this difficult moment for the economy. Do read. It was on January 30, 2020, that the first case of novel coronavirus infection was detected in India in Kerala. We have since tracked closely the spread, growth, and ultimately decline of the epidemic in the country. Amitabh Sinha wrote a short summary of the pandemic trajectory over the past year. While all the main indicators — case numbers, death rate, infectivity, etc. — are now in the comfortable zone, and vaccination, despite a degree of hesitancy, is progressing well, some concerns remain over the emergence of new variants of the virus in several countries around the world. Over the past 10 days or so, significant new research has been published on these mutants, and we asked two of India’s most eminent virologists and vaccine scientists, Shahid Jameel and Virander Singh Chauhan to summarise and evaluate their findings, and to suggest a prescription for India going forward. The Supreme Court collegium is set to withdraw its recommendation to appoint Justice Pushpa V Ganediwala, an additional judge of the Bombay High Court, as a permanent judge of the court. This follows a scrutiny of two judgments given recently by Justice Ganediwala, which involved interpretations of sections of The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. Apurva Vishwanath wrote about an important question spotlighted by the judge’s restricted interpretation of the offence — the concept of mandatory minimum sentencing in legislation, including POCSO. Stay safe. The numbers suggest the pandemic is close to the exit in India, but it will be rash to assume it’s time for business as usual already. Sincerely. Monojit (monojit.majumdar@expressindia.com) If you received this newsletter as a forward, you can subscribe to it here | Do read our Explained articles here 
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