This is the first episode of ‘Budget 2025: What’s at Stake?’ – which will look at the issues that need addressing in the days leading up to the Union government's annual budget presentation.

As economic inequality widens, Hindu nationalist groups are exploiting the social unrest in the country to consolidate power, threatening the core democratic institutions of India.

The Niti Aayog's claim that poverty has fallen to 5% flies in the face of a mass of other information that we have about the economy, because of which the conclusion is inescapable that this figure is being pushed by the government for propaganda purposes before the elections.

While classical fascism was characterised by the fusion of corporate and state power, contemporary fascism is the fusion of corporate and communal power rising from the crisis of neo-liberalism.

The Left alone can provide a way out of the socio-economic and political dead end India is in now since it can provide an agenda transcending neoliberal capitalism.