Opinion Derek O’Brien writes: 79 suggestions for the Union government on 79th I-Day

Health
7. Remove 18 per cent GST on health and life insurance.
8. Increase spending on public healthcare, currently less than 2 per cent of GDP.
9. Strengthen AIIMS. Over 18,000 positions are vacant in AIIMS hospitals.
10. Provide free medical and psychological treatment for acid attack survivors.

Education
11. Restart discontinued minority scholarship schemes like the Maulana Azad National Fellowship.
12. Stop partisan changes to

NCERT textbooks
13. Provide quality education to ST kids. A third of Eklavya schools are non-functional.

Children
14. Bring down student suicides.
15. Eradicate child labour.
16. Fight drug addiction among children. 1.5 crore children aged 10-17 are addicted.
17. Focus on child health. Two out of five children up to five years of age are stunted.
18. Bring down number of zero-food children. Three out of 10 infants aged between six and 11 months are classified as such.

Gender
19. Pass stronger laws for time-bound resolution of cases of crime against women.
20. Amend the Women’s Reservation Bill, delink it from the census and delimitation.
21. Harmonise punishment for sexual violence against transgender persons with penalties under the BNS for women.
22. Legalise same-sex marriage.
23. Criminalise marital rape.

Federalism
24. Make cess and surcharge a part of the divisible pool, to be shared with states.
25. Resolve ongoing unrest in Manipur.
26. Stop using the ED as a political weapon. Its conviction rate is 0.25 per cent.
27. Stop Hindi imposition.
28. Give full statehood to J&K.
29. Stop squeezing non-BJP states for funds. Bengal alone is owed over Rs 15,000 crore under MGNREGA and PMAY-G.
Policy
30. Admit demonetisation was a failure.
31. Roll back Agnipath and bring back permanent recruitment in the Armed Forces.
32. Introduce a framework to reduce financial frauds, which increased by 97 per cent between 2020 and 2024.
33. Introduce a national elder care policy with support services and pension.
34. Ensure a five-year cooling-off period before retired judges can take up any other constitutional post.
35. Increase the judiciary’s strength. Over five crore cases are pending across courts.
36. Delink MGNREGS payment from Aadhaar, which makes over 28 per cent of MGNREGS workers ineligible.
37. Strengthen RTI and include institutions like PM CARES under its purview.
38. Improve data privacy. The DPDP rules have not been framed. More than 81 crore citizens’ data was leaked in 2023.
39. Improve press freedom, in which India is ranked 161 out of 180.
40. Strengthen the Armed Forces. There are 1.09 lakh vacancies in paramilitary forces.
41. Strengthen banking access. One in five Jan Dhan accounts is inactive.
42. Increase PM Kisan funds to Rs 12,000
43. Stop manual scavenging. Between 2014 and 2023, 736 people died cleaning sewers and septic tanks.
44. Reduce plastic pollution. 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated each year.
45. Build dedicated legislation for AI. Do not wait to take the cue from other countries.
46. Withdraw the SIR exercise in Bihar.
47. Implement a national bail reform policy to reduce the undertrial population.
48. Conduct the census, due since 2021, in 2026 instead of 2027.
49. Standardise gig/contract worker rights, including social security.
50. Increase the wages of MGNREGS and ASHA workers.

Economy
51. Reduce poverty. Four out of five people earn less than Rs 171 a day.
52. Improve GDP growth, which was at a four-year low in 2024-25.
53. Increase value added by manufacturing. Manufacturing GVA was at 4.5 per cent in FY 2025, lower than FY 2013.
54. Reduce agriculture household debt. The average outstanding loan per agricultural household is over Rs 74,000.
55. Strengthen MSMEs. Between 2020 and February 2025, over 75,000 MSMEs were shut down.
56. Boost industrial growth, which in June was at its lowest in 10 months.
57. Create high-value jobs. Forty-six per cent of the workforce is in agriculture.
58. Reduce household indebtedness. Household savings touched a 50-year low
in 2022-23.
59. Reduce per capita external debt, which rose by 132 per cent in 2014-2025.

Infrastructure
60. Develop air connectivity. Of 619 routes operationalised under UDAN, only half are currently operational.
61. Improve internet access. Over 21,200 villages don’t have internet connections.
62. Expand expressways. Twenty-five per cent of Bharatmala project isn’t yet awarded.
63. Boost railway safety. There are over one lakh vacancies in the railways.
64. Expand KAVACH. In four years, it was installed in just 2 per cent of rail routes.
65. Ensure road safety. About half of unnatural and untimely deaths are due to road accidents.
66. Improve infrastructure. Work for only eight per cent of Amrit Bharat stations has been completed.

Parliament
67. Give more time to the Opposition. Seventy per cent is used by the government.
68. Appoint a deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha. The post has been vacant since 2019.
69. Have a fixed parliamentary calendar with a minimum 100 days of sittings.
70. Stop bulldozing bills. The 500-plus-page Income Tax Bill was passed in under five minutes in the Lok Sabha this week.
71. Stop mass suspension of MPs — 146 were suspended in one session in 2023.

Bad Laws
72. Repeal CAA.
73. Ban anti-conversion laws.
74. Scrap sedition and the UAPA law, which has a conviction rate under 3 per cent.
75. Repeal the Waqf (Amendment) Act.
76. Criminalise marital rape.
For the Prime Minister
77. Answer a question in Parliament.
78. Hold a press conference.
79. Visit Manipur

The writer is MP and leader, All India Trinamool Congress Parliamentary Party. Research credit: Ayashman Dey, Chahat Mangtani, Dheemunt Jain, Varnika Mishra