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Solid Waste Management — the SC verdict and the SWM Rules, 2026

On August 4, 2026, the Supreme Court directed the Union government to frame comprehensive guidelines for imposing and collecting environmental compensation for violations of the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2026. These new rules were notified on January 27 and came into force on April 1, 2026, replacing the SWM Rules of 2016. The bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe observed that laws alone are not enough — India needs strong regulatory mechanisms and accountability to make them work on the ground. The article uses this verdict as an entry point to explain how India's waste actually moves from household to landfill, where the system breaks down, and why segregation and data verification must come before building more plants. It also flags the role of digital public infrastructure and AI-based decision support in fixing the sector. Segregate first, verify next, build later. That sequence is the whole argument — a processing plant fed mixed waste and unverified data fails whatever it cost.

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Parliament's productivity — the cost of disruption and the case for a performance compact

Gourav Vallabh

The Monsoon Session of 2026 has ended, and the author uses PRS Legislative Research data to argue that Parliament failed the productivity test — Lok Sabha worked only 15% of scheduled time (17.5 hours out of roughly 114 scheduled) and Rajya Sabha 33% (37.37 hours). Applying the widely cited Rs 2.5 lakh per minute benchmark — split as Rs 1.25 lakh per House-minute, from 2008 and 2012 assessments — the author estimates the opportunity cost at about Rs 130 crore for the session. The piece then contrasts this with the 2026 Budget Session, which ran at 86% and 92% productivity, showing that the same institution works when political actors choose deliberation over spectacle. It uses the August 12 episode — where Home Minister Amit Shah offered an extended debate and the Opposition refused — to argue that demanding accountability and then refusing the forum is a contradiction. It closes with a four-point reform proposal, a "Parliamentary Performance Compact" , covering make-up time for lost hours, guaranteed debate routes, a real-time public dashboard, and stricter daily-allowance accountability. Four months apart, the same members under the same rules produced 15% and then 86%. The machinery is not broken — the failure is behavioural, and that is what makes it fixable. This is an opinion piece by Prof. Gourav Vallabh, a part-time member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, and it carries a viewpoint. The concepts below are set out neutrally, and the counter-view has a block of its own on the Ammunition tab.

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