MNREGA to be Changed to VB-G RAM G
☕ India’s Morning Briefing: Tue, December 16
Hello, and welcome to the brief.
Good morning.
If you’re wondering why the trade deficit dropped like a stone while the Rupee still hit rock bottom, or why the government decided to rename MNREGA to something that sounds like computer memory, you’ve come to the right place. Yesterday was a day of structural shifts, security scares, and a football god in Delhi fog. Let’s dive in.
Welcome to the 184th edition of The India Brief
Do not miss the deep dive in the end.
CATEGORY: THE MONEY TRAIL
📉 The Deficit Miracle
📉 Gap: Trade deficit narrowed 61% to $6.6 billion in Nov 2025.
🚢 Exports: Surged 19.37% to $38.13 billion.
⬇️ Imports: Sharp decline aided the balance.
The Wit: We bought less, sold more, and the currency still panicked. It’s like acing the exam and getting grounded anyway.
The Lens: A collapsing deficit usually boosts currency, but global “Trump Trade” anxiety is overriding fundamentals. The export surge proves manufacturing resilience, yet capital flight remains the dominant structural worry.
💸 Rupee in Freefall
💸 Record: Rupee crashed to all-time low of 90.74 vs USD.
🏃 Outflows: Persistent FII selling pressure continues.
🇺🇸 Factor: Anxiety over delayed India-US trade deal.
The Wit: The Rupee is playing limbo—how low can it go? At this rate, dollar bills will soon be framed as luxury art in Mumbai living rooms.
The Lens: This is a capital account crisis, not a trade one. Investors are fleeing to high-yield US assets, ignoring India’s growth story. The RBI is prioritizing reserve conservation over defending a specific psychological level.
📉 Market Blues
📉 Indices: Sensex down 54 pts; Nifty dipped 20 pts.
🚗 Lagged: Auto and Finance stocks dragged the index.
🇲🇽 Fear: Mexico tariffs impacting global supply chains.
The Wit: The market is moving sideways like a crab with a hangover. Investors are waiting for a tweet to decide whether to buy or cry.
The Lens: The volatility is imported. Fears of US tariffs on autos (via Mexico) are hitting Indian component makers. The market is pricing in a geopolitical risk premium that domestic earnings can’t currently offset.
CATEGORY: THE POLICY PIVOT
📜 Bye MNREGA, Hello VB-G RAM G
📜 Bill: Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar... (VB-G RAM G).
⬆️ Upgrade: Guaranteed days increased to 125 from 100.
💰 Shift:States to share costs; normative allocation introduced. Bill introduced, will likely replace MNREGA.
The Wit: They renamed MNREGA to something sounding like computer RAM. If it creates jobs as fast as it takes to say the acronym, we’re golden.
The Lens: Increasing workdays boosts welfare, but the “normative allocation” caps Centre’s liability. It subtly shifts the fiscal burden of distress migration onto cash-strapped states, altering the federal welfare contract. Changing names to change narratives is an old game for the administration.
⚛️ The SHANTI Bill introduced
⚛️ Reform: Opens nuclear power to private players.
⚡ Target: 100 GW capacity by 2047.
🛡️ Liability: Caps operator liability; limits supplier risk.
The Wit: Private companies can finally play with uranium. Ideally, we get cheap power; cynically, we hope they read the safety manual twice.
The Lens: This ends the state’s nuclear monopoly. By diluting the “supplier liability” clause, the govt is rolling out the red carpet for US giants like Westinghouse. It’s the biggest energy liberalization since 1991.
🗳️ BMC Polls Announced
🗓️ Date: Jan 15, 2026 (Counting Jan 16). 💰
Prize: Asia’s richest civic body.
⏳ Delay: Elections were overdue since early 2022.
The Wit: Mumbai finally gets to vote for who ignores their potholes. It’s the Super Bowl of civic elections, funded by a budget bigger than some small countries.
The Lens: This is the litmus test for the Shiv Sena split. Control of the BMC isn’t just about garbage; it’s the financial engine of Maharashtra. The long delay has heightened anti-incumbency risks.
👔 BJP’s New Guard
👤 Name: Nitin Nabin (Bihar Minister).
🏢 Role:Appointed National Working President.
👶 Signal: Youngest leader in this post; generational shift.
The Wit: A 45-year-old in a top post? In Indian politics, that’s practically a toddler. The BJP is future-proofing while the opposition debates seniority.
The Lens: Nabin’s elevation targets the Bihar electorate and the Kayastha community. It signals the BJP is building a bench of leaders who can execute organizational tasks beyond the Modi-Shah centralization.
🗣️ Omar on ‘Vote Chori’
📢 Claim: Congress raised “Vote Chori” (Electoral fraud) issue.
🛑 Distancing: Omar Abdullah says INDIA bloc “has nothing to do with it.”
⚖️ Stance: Focused on J&K governance, not EVM debates.
The Wit: Omar swiped left on the “EVMs are hacked” group chat. It seems the INDIA alliance has different playlists for different states.
The Lens: This signals a fracture in the opposition’s unified narrative on electoral integrity. Abdullah is prioritizing practical governance relations with the Centre over ideological battles that haven’t yielded electoral dividends.
CATEGORY: SECURITY & CRIME
🎣 CBI Busts Phishing Ring
🕵️ Arrests: 3 held (Sonveer, Maneesh, Himalaya).
🕸️ Network: Massive phishing SMS operation across India.
💸 Scam: Fake digital arrests, loan scams, investment fraud.
The Wit: “Your electricity will be cut tonight”—if you believed that SMS, these are the guys to blame. The CBI finally phished the phishers.
The Lens: This isn’t just a few scammers in a basement; it’s a structured enterprise. The arrest exposes the “Cybercrime-as-a-Service” model thriving in pockets of India, requiring a federal crackdown rather than just state police action.
⚠️ Uttarakhand Tension
🕌 Incident: Hindu groups allegedly disrupted Muslim prayers in Dehradun.
👮 Police: Allegedly stood by without intervening.
📹 Viral: Videos show threats issued in residential area.
The Wit: When the “guardians of the law” become the “audience of the law,” you know the script has gone wrong. A disturbing scene in the valley of peace.
The Lens: This incident in Miyawala highlights the fragility of communal relations in the north. The alleged police inaction emboldens vigilante groups, creating a parallel enforcement mechanism that undermines the state’s monopoly on order.
CATEGORY: SOCIETY, TECH & SPORTS
🌫️ Delhi Schools Go Hybrid
😷 Trigger: GRAP IV restrictions enforced.
🏫 Action: Classes 1–9 & 11 shift to online/hybrid.
🌫️ Reason: Severe AQI in Delhi-NCR.
The Wit: Delhi kids are the only ones who pray for bad smog to skip school. “Hybrid mode” is just code for “try to learn while coughing.”
The Lens: This is a seasonal admission of failure. Closing schools is a band-aid on a bullet wound. The economic cost of this annual disruption—productivity loss and health impact—is massive.
🧠 Stroke Breakthrough
🩺 Device: ‘Supernova’ stent retriever approved.
🇮🇳 Origin: Made in India (AIIMS trial success).
🏥 Impact: Cheaper clot removal; available from Feb.
The Wit: Finally, a “Made in India” product that literally saves brains. It’s cheaper, faster, and doesn’t require an import license to save a life.
The Lens: This is a massive win for med-tech indigenisation. Reducing reliance on imported stents lowers costs significantly, making critical stroke intervention accessible to a much broader demographic.
🤝 Modi in Jordan
🇯🇴 Visit: First by an Indian PM in 37 years.
🤝 Deals: 5 MoUs signed (Renewable, Water, Culture).
🌍 Context: 3-nation tour (Jordan, Ethiopia, Oman).
The Wit: Visiting Jordan now is like walking into a geopolitical minefield with flowers. Modi is racking up frequent flyer miles in the trickiest neighborhood.
The Lens: Jordan is a critical buffer in the Middle East. India needs its phosphate (fertilizer) and moderate voice. Pushing UPI there embeds India into the region’s financial plumbing.
⚽ Messi in Delhi
⚽ Event: Final leg of GOAT India tour.
❌ Cancel: PM Modi meeting cancelled (Modi abroad).
🏟️ Scene: Felicitation at Arun Jaitley Stadium.
The Wit: Messi holding a cricket bat looked as confused as a batsman at a penalty shootout. The meeting cancellation was the only thing “defensive” about this tour.
The Lens: The organizational chaos marks the brand value of such tours. It highlights India’s immense sports market potential but its lingering inability to manage mega-events professionally.
🌏 WORLD WATCH: TOP GLOBAL
🇨🇱 Chile’s Hard Right Turn
📍 THE NEWS BLOCK
Winner: José Antonio Kast (58% vote).
Shift: Defeated leftist; admires Pinochet era.
Driver: Fear of crime and migration.
The Wit: Chile looked at the left, looked at the right, and sprinted to the far edge. The pendulum didn’t just swing; it broke the clock.
The Lens: This is part of a global trend: incumbent fatigue + security anxiety = far-right victory. Kast’s win impacts the global green transition, given Chile’s copper dominance.
🏠 Airbnb’s $75M Fine
Country: Spain cracks down.
Offense: Advertising unlicensed rentals.
Context: Housing crisis and over-tourism.
The Wit: Spain told Airbnb, “Mi casa es NOT su casa.” $75 million is a steep price for ruining the rental market for locals.
The Lens: Europe is declaring war on the gig economy’s externalities. This fine is a precedent; expect other tourist hubs to follow suit, forcing platforms to police their own listings.
🇫🇷 Paris Peace March
Chant: “Won’t Die for Ukraine”.
Group: Organized by Patriots party.
Fear: NATO escalation/World War III.
The Wit: The French protesting against a war? Classic. But “Won’t Die for Ukraine” is a slogan that hits harder than a baguette to the face.
The Lens: War fatigue is setting in across Western Europe. Populist parties are successfully framing the conflict as an elite project that costs the working class.
🧸 THE GOOD STUFF
🏆 Squash Kings: India created history by becoming the first Asian country to win the Squash World Cup, defeating Hong Kong 3-0.
🦅 Saving the Great: Rajasthan’s Bishnoi community and forest officials have united to save the Great Indian Bustard from extinction.
💡 Light for All: An NIT Rourkela team built a clean-energy microgrid that powers 4 rural homes at once.
🤖 Robo-Teacher: A rural Karnataka teacher built a low-cost humanoid robot to boost learning in village schools.
⚖️ Legal Win: Legal-tech startup Lawyered raised ₹8.5 Cr to make justice accessible for the common man.
🧠 THE DEEP DIVE
The Death of MNREGA: Rebranding or Reform?
Yesterday, the government drove a bulldozer through the legacy of the UPA era. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA)—the lifeline of rural India for two decades—is effectively dead. In its place rises the VB-G RAM G Bill (Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission).
On the surface, it looks like a gift. The new bill increases the guaranteed workdays from 100 to 125. That’s a 25% hike in entitlement, a massive win for a rural household facing inflation. But read the fine print, and the story changes from benevolence to book-keeping.
The devil lies in the funding model. MNREGA was a demand-driven scheme where the Centre bore 100% of the wage bill. If a drought hit Bihar and demand spiked, the Centre had to pay. The new bill introduces a “normative allocation” and a cost-sharing mechanism. For many states, once the Centre’s allocated budget runs dry, the State government must cough up the cash (likely a 60:40 split).
This is a profound shift in the federal contract. It transforms a “Right to Work” backed by the sovereign into a “Scheme for Work” capped by a budget. By limiting its open-ended liability, the Centre is fiscal-proofing its balance sheet against climate change and distress migration. But for cash-strapped states already begging for GST dues, this is a nightmare.
Why does this matter to you? Because rural demand drives the Indian economy. If states can’t fund the extra workdays, rural wages stagnate. When rural India stops buying motorcycles and biscuits, the factories in Gurgaon and Chennai stop humming. The “Dead Economy” might be a political slur, but choking rural liquidity is a sure-fire way to make it a reality.
🙋 QUESTION OF THE DAY
With the government shifting the financial burden of rural employment to states, do you think this will lead to better accountability or just more unpaid wages for the poor?
Aditya S. Editor-in-Chief, OneRead.News