HIGHLIGHTS
- Public goods doing good
- Fighting back against privatized healthcare
- Weeding out fraud in government procurement
JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | ALL THE REST
First, the Good News
1) National: In the Public Interest’s Executive Director Donald Cohen says, “I often say government actions–and actors–are ubiquitous—and invisible at the same time. We think they deserve some visibility. (…) But as we fight forward, more people should know the positive impacts government action has on our lives that are happening today. That’s why we’ve created a series of graphics for social media (you’ll find the first batch shareable on our LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X platforms—we’ll be making them downloadable and adding to them in the future through our website) that draws attention to the ways government action can (and should) make us safer, healthier, and more connected to one another.”
2) National: A special episode of Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider’s Have You Heard podcast has been created “to celebrate the release of The Education Wars, we’ve gathered a cast of thousands to help bring the book to life. Our special guests help us understand what’s driving the intense push to privatize schools, what we’ll lose when public schools are gone, and how we can fight to protect and transform public education in this country. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be inspired, you’ll want to buy the book–and then give it away. Special guests include Erik Anderson, Noliwe Rooks, Derek Gottlieb, Jess Piper, Heather DuBois Bourenane, Letha Muhammed, Nora Flanagan and Johann Neem.” [Audio, about 37 minutes]
3) National/New Report: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is on the case. On Friday, they announced they have taken “a suite of actions to address growing concern about unfair and deceptive practices by franchisors.” FTC warned “that franchisors’ use of contract provisions, including non-disparagement clauses that prohibit franchisees’ communications with the government, violate the law. The statement emphasizes that franchisee reports and voluntary interviews are a critical part of FTC investigations and franchisees’ reluctance or inability to file reports and discuss their experiences may hamper the agency’s work to protect franchisees. Threats of retaliation against a franchisee for reporting potential law violations to the government are unlawful.”
In addition, the FTC has “released an interim report saying that sprawling health care conglomerates are driving out competition in the pharmacy sector and appear to be increasing prices in the process. The interim report comes after the Federal Trade Commission in 2022 announced that it was undertaking a sweeping investigation of pharmacy middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. Each of the largest three PBMs—CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx—is part of a much-larger corporation that also owns a top-10 health insurer. They also own pharmacies, doctors’ offices and other links in the health chain, prompting the FTC to say they’re ‘vertically integrated.’”
4) National: Can someone put an “only whites need apply” sign on their shop window? Well, a three judge panel has allowed a lawsuit to proceed by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to close a legal loophole that seems to have permitted non-bank mortgage companies to do that.
David Dayen of The American Prospect explains. “The ruling preserves the ability for regulatory enforcers to use the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) the way it traditionally has been used in its 50 years of existence: to discourage any discriminatory activity by lenders, even if it occurs before a borrower turns in an application for credit. (…) It’s notable that, in a time where conservative judges are rewriting regulatory rules to suit their ideological ends, three Republican appointees managed to actually read a statute, figure out the broad scope of its intent, and apply the law. There’s hope for the judiciary yet.”
Dayen continues, “this kind of actual wrestling with legislative history is remarkably free of subjective considerations. Originalism can often be a fig leaf that hides an ‘anything goes’ attitude where judges substitute their ideological preferences for the law. But in this case, the judges read the statute, and made reasonable inferences of what it says. Amazingly, that has to be seen as a step forward.” But it remains to be seen, of course, if Congress, going forward, will practice the same kind of due diligence in its legislative drafting and approvals that underpins this “wrestling.”
5) National: Did you know that you can request a speaker from the National Labor Relations Board to come and talk to folks in your workplace? Or in fact all these groups?
- Employee and employer groups,
- Professional associations,
- Local, state and federal agencies,
- Worker advocacy groups,
- Student groups/Schools,
- Non-profit entities,
- Elected officials,
- Veterans’ groups,
- Community organizations, and
- Other members of the general public
6) Minnesota: More Perfect Union reports that “St. Paul is erasing $100 million in medical debt.
The mayor just wrote about this plan: ‘We all deserve the right to access life-saving medical care without being trapped by staggering costs that leave us unable to pay for our housing, food and other basic needs.’ /1. ‘Over the next year, 43,000 residents of Saint Paul, Minnesota will receive a letter in the mail telling them that their medical debt—the crippling hospital bills that have been hanging over their head for years—have been paid off.’”
7) New York: Uber and Lyft agree are to pay a combined $328 million for withholding money from their drivers. “Uber agreed to pay $290 million and Lyft $38 million in what New York Attorney General Letitia James called the largest wage-theft settlement her office has ever secured. The money will be distributed to cheated drivers who will get back pay along with mandatory paid sick leave and other benefits. Eligible drivers can file a claim to receive the money owed.”
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that reported and unreported wage theft could amount to as much as $50 billion per year owed to workers.
8) New York: New York Focus reports on how upstate retirees fought privatized health care and won. “When retired public sector employees in Cortland County received a letter last July announcing the county legislature’s intent to privatize their health care plan, it struck some as an inevitability. Medicare Advantage seemed to be everywhere. Sales representatives pushing the privately run alternative to traditional Medicare had already convinced nearby Chemung and Tioga counties, among others, to move their retirees over to one of their plans, seemingly with little pushback from the affected seniors. Then something unusual happened. Instead of accepting the change and hoping for the best, Cortland retirees sued the county and won. The county legislature reversed course, and the retirees kept the plan they had been promised throughout their careers.”
9) Wisconsin/Upcoming Meeting: The Wisconsin Public Education Networks 10th Annual Summer Summit is to be held in Madison from July 30-31. “Welcome remarks from Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Jill Underly; U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona; Madison Superintendent and 2024 national Superintendent of the Year Dr. Joe Gothard; and many more. Featured speakers, including Jennifer Berkshire, coauthor of The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual; Donald Cohen, Executive Director of In The Public Interest and author of The Privatization of Everything; Asma Elhuni, Lead Organizer, H.E.A.L. Together, Race Forward; Kevin Lawrence Henry, UW-Madison Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis; and more.”
10) National: As the Republican Party convention kicks off, the party has vowed to kill the Department of Education and privatize education. “Billionaires are helping them,” Nadra Nittle of The 19th News reports. “In the fall, the Department of Education will mark 45 years since its inception, but that anniversary could be its last if Donald Trump gets his way. The federal agency is one of several he’s vowed to slash if reelected president. ‘We’re going to end education coming out of Washington, D.C.,’ he said in a campaign video last year. ‘We’re going to close it up—all those buildings all over the place and people that in many cases hate our children. We’re going to send it all back to the states.’”
11) National: Andy Kroll of ProPublica and Nick Surgey of Documented report on how a “secret organization of wealthy Christians trying to sway the election and change the country,” called Ziklag, is targeting public schools. “To address their concerns about education, Ziklag’s leaders and allies have focused on the public-school system. In a 2021 Ziklag meeting, Ziklag’s education mountain chair, Peter Bohlinger, said that Ziklag’s goal ‘is to take down the education system as we know it today.’ The producers of the film “Sound of Freedom,” featuring Jim Caviezel as an anti-sex-trafficking activist, screened an early cut of the film at a Ziklag conference and asked for funds, according to Dallas.” For more on Seven Mountains Dominionism see Daniel Miller and Bradley Onishi’s podcast Straight White American Jesus.
12) Arkansas: Conservatives in Garland County (Hot Springs) are trying to financially strangle the local library after failing to get it defunded. The Arkansas Advocate reports that “Garland County residents are circulating a petition for a countywide ballot measure to reduce the property tax that funds the local library after initially proposing to eliminate the tax completely. The proposal would reduce the 1.6-mill tax, approved by county voters in 1998, to 1.0 mills. The current millage brings in roughly $3.6 million annually for Garland County Library maintenance and operations, library executive director Adam Webb said. If successful, Garland County would be Arkansas’ second county in two years, after Craighead County, to vote to reduce its library system’s tax revenue.”
The Adult Learning Alliance of Arkansas reports that “in Arkansas, 13.7% of adults age 16 and older lack basic literacy skills (Health Rankings, 2015). Nearly 19% of Arkansans 25 and over (347,032 people) do not have a high school diploma or GED, and over 130,000 have less than a ninth-grade education (U.S. Census Community Survey, 2009). Adults with low literacy skills often cannot effectively negotiate the health care system, read food or prescription drug labels, fill out a simple job application, support the educational development of their children, or manage their finances. They experience greater difficulty both in finding and retaining employment and face significant obstacles that can prevent them from being engaged members of their community.”
13) Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania Capital-Star reports that the Keystone State’s education funding budget bill contains tightened up requirements and policies for charter school payments. “When a student attends a charter school, the charter school gets money that would have gone to the student’s school district. The amount is based on the average per-student spending of that school district, with a separate formula for students with disabilities. The code bill establishes a formula for reimbursing traditional public schools for some of the money that follows would-be students to cyber charter schools. The budget set aside $100 million for that purpose. It also changes the formula for how much money follows students with special needs, which is estimated to save public schools $34.5 million. The bill would also force charter schools to put in their advertisements that they were paid for with taxpayer dollars, a largely symbolic victory for Democrats who opposed money intended for public schools going to charters. It also makes new requirements of charter school board members. At least five must be non-related voting members. Charter schools will also be required to make certain budget documents public.”
14) Mississippi: A new academic report finds both confusion and support for the state’s charter schools.” When asked what charter schools were, 46% of non-charter school parents who took the survey did not know. Additionally, 58.4% of non-charter school parents knew that charter schools were public schools and 70.3% supported having them in their communities. Among parents of charter school students, 63.3% know they are public schools and 93% of them support having these schools in their communities.”
15) South Carolina: The Post and Courier reports that “an upstate attorney embroiled in a legal dispute with the state’s largest charter school system has filed a defamation lawsuit against his Republican opponent from last month’s state House primary. (…) Sanders was responsible for a mass text message saying Galyean was ‘currently under State Ethics Investigation and owes one million dollars in unpaid loans,’ according to a screenshot provided in the lawsuit. Galyean’s complaints against two of Sanders’ supporters cited posts on Facebook, one of which links to a State newspaper articleabout a $1 million legal dispute between Galyean and Erskine College. Erskine’s Charter Institute oversees 27 schools and nearly 26,000 students across the state—including three schools Galyean helped launch.”
16) Wisconsin: State Rep. Francesca Hong (D) “condemns Wisconsin Republicans for what she believes is their end goal: ‘to privatize public education.’ She asserts ‘that the attack on public education is truly an attack on democracy, and it’s a way to distract us from the fact that they truly do not want to have access to opportunity, to critical thinking and nutritious food available to all students.’ She accuses state Republicans of having an ‘agenda to maintain a much wider wealth gap. And undermine one of our last, I think, democratic institutions, which is public education.’”
17) National: Who monitors criminal rip-offs in government procurement? In private procurement? Who polices anticompetitive practices in the concrete industry, for example, which can have severely damaging effects on infrastructure development? “‘Concrete is essential to our nation’s infrastructure,’ said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. ‘Today’s guilty verdicts reflect the Antitrust Division’s commitment to holding individuals accountable for cheating American consumers out of the opportunity to purchase necessary building materials free of corruption and collusion.’”
Ripping off the government procurement system can be a criminal act. “In November 2019, the Justice Department created the Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF), a joint law enforcement effort to combat antitrust crimes and related fraudulent schemes that impact government procurement, grant and program funding at all levels of government – federal, state and local. To learn more about the PCSF, or to report information on bid rigging, price fixing, market allocation and other anticompetitive conduct related to government spending, go to www.justice.gov/procurement-collusion-strike-force.”
18) National: Following the Supreme Court’s Chevron ruling, which weakened the regulatory powers of federal agencies, Republicans are moving to challenge President Biden’s climate agenda. “House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent letters this week to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan requesting information about any ‘rules, actions or decisions’ that may be impacted by the high court’s decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which overturned the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council decision.” [Sub required].
19) California: LA Metro celebrates “adding its first line into San Bernardino County, after the California State Transportation Agency released $1.9 billion in transportation funding on Monday to support transit projects throughout the state. The funding is the first wave of the $5.1 billion multi-year transit recovery package allocated in the 2023-24 budget package signed by Newsom ahead of the start of the July 1 fiscal year. The funding was distributed to 22 agencies with amounts based on regional population.” [Sub required].
20) Pennsylvania: The Keystone State’s public water officials are striking back against the privatization industry’s crusade to seize the public’s water infrastructure and services. “If Tony Bellitto, 63, had it his way, his customers living in the heart of Montgomery County wouldn’t know his name. However, recent instances of giant water companies aggressively trying to wrest control of public companies have thrust the executive director of Lansdale-based North Penn Water Authority into the public eye. Bellito’s testimony before the Pennsylvania legislature went viral in December 2023. More than five million people witnessed him calling water privatization a ‘scam.’ The growth of investor-owned water companies has led to skyrocketing water bills. The Bronx native said it’s by design.”
21) Puerto Rico: Can a private, for-profit company issue public municipal bonds? Yes. “A subsidiary of Spanish highway operator Abertis is considering borrowing $424 million to fund capital projects for four Puerto Rico toll roads. The Public Finance Authority, a Wisconsin-based conduit issuer, approved the municipal bond sale for Puerto Rico Toll Roads LLC, at a June 26 board meeting. PFA would loan the proceeds it borrows to Puerto Rico Toll Roads, which is part of Metropistas, an Abertis subsidiary that operates numerous toll roads and one bridge in Puerto Rico.” [Sub required]
22) International/Canada: Regina Leader Post columnist Murray Mandryk says that the conservative Saskatchewan Party’s steering away from privatizing Crown assets is a wise move. But while such politics is bolstering Sask. Party re-election bids, it’s avoidance of past Crown corporation politics that has bolstered its longevity. If the Sask. Party remained as dogmatic on Crown privatization as it now is on socially conservative issues, would it be doing as well in the polls? Keeping them as they are may be the wisest thing this Sask. Party government has done.”
23) International/United Kingdom: Britain’s private equity-owned water companies are angry that the government regulator, OFWAT isn’t granting them enough of a rate increase to enable them to reach the profit level potential investors want in order to invest in their recovery. Customers, in turn, are accusing the government regulator of showing “contempt” for them over bill price rises, and in turn are demanding that the government regulator require the water companies to repair the infrastructure causing massive sewer releases before any rate increases, which also go for “executive pay, bonuses, debt interest and dividends” is granted. “Debt-laden Thames Water, which must now try to raise new equity, will go into a special ‘turnaround oversight regime,” The Financial Times reports. “The regulator insists this is not a precursor to a special administration regime (Sar), in effect a form of nationalisation. But Ofwat is mulling the appointment of an independent monitor to scrutinise the company’s performance. That might ease the transition to a Sar if required—as remains very possible.” [Sub required]
24) National: The federal government is moving in to regulate the big artificial intelligence companies on their work practices and anticompetitive practices. The SEC and FTC are in the spotlight.
OpenAI has illegally barred staff from airing safety risks, according to whistleblowers. “OpenAI whistleblowers have filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the artificial intelligence company illegally prohibited its employees from warning regulators about the grave risks its technology may pose to humanity, calling for an investigation. The whistleblowers said OpenAI issued its employees overly restrictive employment, severance and nondisclosure agreements that could have led to penalties against workers who raised concerns about OpenAI to federal regulators, according to a seven-page letter sent to the SEC commissioner earlier this month that referred to the formal complaint. The letter was obtained exclusively by The Washington Post.”
And last Wednesday, Microsoft relinquished its seat on the OpenAI board and Apple will no longer assume an equivalent role, Forbes reports. “While Big Tech thrived under minimal antitrust scrutiny for a decade, Silicon Valley’s giants have found their immense influence and size under pressure from global competition regulators in recent years, including the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. Investigations and enforcement have focused on areas central to the digital economy and include the way tech companies like Apple and Google dominate online marketplaces and apps; the way firms like Meta approach privacy and advertising; and anti-competitive acquisitions, such as Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of gaming studio Blizzard.”
25) National: “Privatization is taking over Medicare—and it cost taxpayers an extra $61 billion last year,” Brent Arendts reports in MarketWatch. “Here’s an idea. How about you give me $10,000 of your hard-earned money, and I give you back $8,700. I pocket the rest – and then you thank me. How’s that sound? No? The ‘Medicare Advantage’ program has never made much sense. Uncle Sam takes taxpayers’ dollars—more than $455 billion last year – and hands it to private insurance companies to distribute to beneficiaries. Minus their cut, of course. And oh boy, is it something. The latest analysis from KFF, the healthcare think-tank formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation, makes for amazing reading. Especially for anyone who might be concerned about, say, the state of Medicare, or our skyrocketing national debt, or government waste, or taxes. Let alone anyone worried about all of the above.” Read the KFF report.
26) National: Should the emerging corporate practice of “personalized pricing” be regulated? David Dayen takes a deep dive in Jacobin. Economists soft-pedal this emerging trend by calling it ‘personalized’ pricing, which reflects their view that tying prices to individual characteristics adds value for consumers. But Zephyr Teachout, who helped write anti-price-gouging rules in the New York attorney general’s office, has a different name for it: surveillance pricing. ‘I think public pricing is foundational to economic liberty,’ said Teachout, now a law professor at Fordham University. ‘Now we need to lock it down with rules.’ (…) The digital surveillance we know about comes from platform companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon, which have built colossal advertising business lines out of social media, search, and e-commerce. But what’s emerging is even more invasive, and more primed to find customers in unusual places, where they will have no idea what the common price might be.”
27) California: State government are also on the move in beginning to regulate “artificial intelligence.” California lawmakers voted to advance legislation Tuesday “that would require artificial intelligence companies to test their systems and add safety measures to prevent them from being potentially manipulated to wipe out the state’s electric grid or help build chemical weapons — scenarios that experts say could be possible in the future as technology evolves at warp speed. The first-of-its-kind bill aims to reduce risks created by AI. It is fiercely opposed by venture capital firms and tech companies, including Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Google. They say the regulations take aim at developers and instead should be focused on those who use and exploit the AI systems for harm.”
But see this interesting thread by Timnit Gebru on the use and misuse of the concept of “safety” in AI discussions about regulation.
28) Minnesota: Eric Bernstein, a policy director for We Make Minnesota, says privatizing government is a win for greedy middlemen and fraudsters. “Conservatives are eager to use these incidents [of public policy malfunction—ed.] to inspire doubts about the efficacy of public programs, but recent fraud and dysfunction do not illustrate an inherent problem with government action. To the contrary, the unifying factor in all of these incidents is that policymakers delegated public services, like feeding kids and delivering health care, to nonprofits and private sector businesses rather than having government agencies complete these tasks directly. Privatization, as this is called, has played a key role both in Minnesota’s recent public policy failures, and in national policy challenges for decades. It is a broad and complex topic that I will introduce in this edition of Tax and Spend and hope to explore in depth over the course of the series.”
29) New York: Will slavery be abolished in New York State? Nia Prater has the story in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer blog. “Forced labor under the threat of punishment. Hourly wages under a dollar an hour. Having to choose between purchasing food or personal items. These are the conditions facing incarcerated New Yorkers that advocates say are why the state should amend its constitution to bar involuntary labor. The Legal Aid Society collected approximately 400 letters from prisoners across the state as part of its campaign with 13th Forward, a statewide coalition advocating for the passage of the No Slavery in New York Act. Many of the incarcerated workers are employed by Corcraft, the industry program within the state department of corrections that produces goods sold throughout the state. Wages for incarcerated workers range from ten cents to 65 cents and haven’t been raised in more than 30 years. The letter writers are only being identified by their initials in order to protect them from potential retaliation.” The Bill, S225B, has passed the state senateand is awaiting action in the state assembly.
30) New Jersey: Jersey City parks workers (Jersey City Public Employees, Local 245) are saying that cuts in personnel are feeding unchecked vandalism and possible privatization. “Jersey City Public Employees Local 245 Union leader Santo DellaMonica complained that nine park workers were being transferred and the department was crumbling because of it. “You have a private contractor doing maintenance of the parks, and you’re spending about $3 million dollars … This private contractor doesn’t do any inspections … repairs,” DellaMonica declared. He also said that the bathroom in Pershing Field has been vandalized and went on to blame the ice rink being broken on privatization as well. ‘You go to Berry Lane [Park], same thing. Bathrooms vandalized. Park maintenance is not there to keep track of the bathrooms. We’re the ones that repair the swings, the slides,’ DellaMonica said. He argued the poor conditions could lead to a lawsuit against the city and/or their employees.”
31) Texas: EMPOWER, the private child welfare collaborative that the State of Texas has hired to manage foster care in nine North Texas counties, is trying to shake up its operations in response to concerns, WFAA reports. “Multiple people who work for EMPOWER sent tips to WFAA that EMPOWER’s Senior Vice President, Dr. Linda Garcia, announced that she would be shifting her focus to community engagement during a staff meeting in late May. The whistleblowers said they began receiving emails and meeting invitations from Randy Neff, who is the senior vice president of a different private contractor, shortly after that announcement. (…) The move comes amidst ongoing criticism from current and former EMPOWER staff who have been outspoken about high caseloads, long shifts to supervise children without placement and witnessing children staying in hotels and EMPOWER offices after they were told that wouldn’t happen. Officials in Dallas County, where a vast majority of the children in EMPOWER’s care come from, also expressed concerns about a lack of communication and collaboration with the organization.”
32) International/Canada: Superstar Canadian journalist Linda McQuaig reports that Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s privatization of alcohol sales will cost taxpayers. “The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), a crown corporation, has been doing a fine job selling alcohol—not exactly a risky enterprise requiring a lot of innovation—through its 677 outlets across the province. And since it is publicly owned, its healthy annual profit—$2.5 billion in 2023—goes into the public treasury, where it pays for things like health care and education. Ontarians have long seemed satisfied with this reasonable arrangement. (…) Once all the LCBO’s lost revenue is factored in, the full cost to the public treasury of this privatization will likely be higher — possibly close to a billion dollars. This needless waste of public money seems to be driven, at least in part, by Ford’s hostility to public sector unions.”
33) International/Canada: Members of CUPE 966 “addressed Region of Peel councillors over concerns about the Ford Government’s secrecy around recommendations made by the Peel Transition Board, including the possibility of privatizing necessary public services like the region’s water and wastewater. ‘While Doug Ford has backtracked on plans to dissolve the region entirely, plans for the future of the region are still being kept a secret,’ said CUPE 966 President Salil Arya, who represents municipal workers in the Region of Peel. ‘Important decisions that will affect Peel residents and our members like the privatization of public services are being made in the dark without transparency or public knowledge and it’s unacceptable.’”
34) National/Upcoming Zoom Meeting: The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is hosting a virtual event with leading experts and advocates “to discuss how monopoly power and structural racism are interwoven, and why targeting structural racism is essential to dismantling monopoly power. The panel will dig into the ways dominant corporations leverage structural racism to eliminate competition and control markets and how policies that help to repair that harm realize the vision of America’s antimonopoly tradition—to democratize economic power and build open and fair markets.” [Register here].
35) National: More Perfect Union reports “billionaire wealth has now doubled since the Trump tax cuts for the super-rich. Just 756 people have seen their wealth go from under $3 trillion in 2017 to over $6 trillion today.”
36) International/India: It seems India may be sobering up after a binge of privatizing state firms left the ruling BJP with a hangover. It will now invest in them, instead of bleeding them dry to set the stage for privatization. “India plans to overhaul more than 200 state-run firms to make them more profitable, signaling a departure from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aggressive privatization program that has struggled to take off, government sources said. The program to privatize a major portion of India’s lumbering $600 billion state sector announced in 2021, had slowed ahead of the general election in April-May and now faces more resistance after Modi lost his majority in parliament and had to rely on coalition allies to return to office. Expected to be unveiled as part of the annual budget on July 23 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the new plans include selling large parcels of underutilized land owned by these companies and monetization of other assets, said two officials who are aware of the policy. Some aspects are yet to be fine-tuned, they added. The aim is to raise $24 billion in the current April-March fiscal year and reinvest the funds in the companies, while setting five-year performance and production targets for each company, instead of short-term targets.”