A new economic deal

Chief ministers from different states will converge in New Delhi twice, first on April 16 and then on May 5, to thrash out contentious issues with the Union government. The second meeting will be devoted entirely to the controversial National Counter Terrorism Centre. But that should not distract us from the larger picture. In the 1980s and 90s, the debates about Centre-state relations had invariably covered political issues as well as Article 356. Today, we are not seeing a renewal of that old argument as much as the beginning of a new one. We are increasingly discussing econo-mic and financial distribution, rather than political questions.

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