Best of BS Opinion: Facing the job problem, real cost of data, and more

Here are the top BS Opinion articles of the day

The Rajasthan government’s decision to initiate an urban job guarantee scheme along the lines of the MNREGA can be seen as the first large-scale institutional response to the problems of urban unemployment revealed during the Covid-19-induced national lockdown in 2020. The response is understandable, but given the size of the state’s debt, expanding entitlements without robust fiscal backing could be a recipe for disaster, the top edit cautions. Read it here

In other views:

Vir Sanghvi points out that the hardening of identity and communal politics means that no matter who wins the Assembly elections, the idea of India as a multicultural, liberal polity is already lost. Read it here

Dipankar Gupta predicts that the annual Budget-day “carnival” may soon become a thing of the past. Read it here

The second edit says India needs a privacy law before it monetises citizens’ data. Read it here

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"We urge PM Narendra Modi to immediately contact Russian President Vladimir Putin and our President Volodymyr Zelensky."

Ukraine's envoy to India Igor Polikha