Vital lessons from pandemic for a nation clawing back on to the growth path

While Centre-state cooperation on lockdown and vaccine roll-out are commendable, the fractious GST council meet and states not allowing in CBI could prove to be a spanner

In August last year, a normally unflappable Sushil Kumar Modi had to intervene in a GST Council meeting. Officers from the department of revenue in the union finance ministry had offered two stiff borrowing options to the state governments in response to the Covid-induced revenue crisis. State finance ministers were miffed that the union finance ministry had not sounded them out about the proposals before tabling them at the meeting. The former Bihar finance minister had to mildly tick off the officers and remind them about the need for wider consultations at the GST Council meetings. 

From an often yearly