Best of BS Opinion: Don't forget the Delhi fire, take corrective measures

Here’s a collection of Business Standard Opinion pieces for the day.

While the public attention shifted to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, introduced in the Parliament on Monday, the political establishment would do well to not forget the tragic fire at capital’s Anaj Mandi that left 43 people dead on Sunday and take corrective measures to avoid such incidents in future.      

Given the frequency of these fires in congested areas, it may be time for the fire-fighting services to focus on acquiring equipment and expertise to tackle fires in such conditions, argues our second editorial.

As reported by Business Standard, large urban co-operative banks (UCBs) may come solely under the provisions of the Banking Regulation Act. In this context, our lead editorial argues that the regulatory reframing will only be successful if it succeeds in transforming the nature of governance for large UCBs that will be directly affected by the change. Read here to read

India's labour force participation rate has fallen from nearly 47 per cent in 2016 to 43 per cent in 2019. This translates into a fall of over 7 million in the labour force over three years – from 443 million to 436 million, writes Mahesh Vyas. 

Defence funding is channelled to state-owned research organisations where scientists are merely bureaucrats holding meetings and sending out minutes of meetings and press releases but have long ago stopped any innovative work. Unless this tragedy is fixed, India’s chances to create world-conquering and job-creating new industries are slim, writes Ajit Balakrishnan. 

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“Citizenship Amendment Bill wouldn’t have been needed if the Congress party had not partitioned the nation on the basis of religion at the time of independence”

 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah