My Musings

 Musings....... NYAY- Universal Basic Income (UBI)  Universal Basic Income is a government programme in which every adult citizen receives a set amount of money on a regular basis. The goals of the basic income system are to alleviate poverty and replace other need based social programmes that potentially require greater bureaucratic involvement. ( Investopedia )  This concept of a basic income for all has gained traction recently in Western countries as automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to replace workers across most sectors of the economy.  The idea of providing a basic income goes back centuries. This finds mention in thr writings of one of the proponents of the American Revolution Thomas Paine, who proposed a tax plan in which revenues would provide government income to “ every person, rich or poor”.  Martin Luther King Jr. proposed “ guaranteed income” in his book “ Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?” published in 1967.  The...

 Musings....... The year 2020 circa will be for long remembered as the Pandemic year for centuries to come. Even though it was named Novel Coronavirus 19 to depict that the virus outbreak happened in late 2019, the full fledged effect of Coronavirus or Covid-19 was felt world over in 2020.  Looking back much has changed the world over due to the pandemic. This year showed how misplaced human priorities are- huge spending on defence while neglecting healthcare, being one such example.  We must remember our year started as a year of protests in India. The Modi Government which in 2019 was elected back with a thumping majority, started to fulfill their manifesto promises.  The initial months of 2020 saw passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and NRC. The special status accorded to all the state Jammu and Kashmir was taken away and the state made into two Union Territories of J and K and Ladakh.  One positive outcome of all this was that the  Protests a...