NL Hafta

Hafta 607: Who pays for UPI? Is the UCC even ‘uniform’?

By NL Team

September 19, 2026 at 12:50 PM

This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Rinchen Norbu are joined by Anupam Manur, Professor of Economics at the Takshashila Institution, and Mihira Sood, Supreme Court lawyer specialising in women’s rights.

The panel opens the discussion by examining the government’s decision to introduce a 0.4% fee on UPI merchant transactions above Rs 2,000, asking what the move means for a payment system that has become central to everyday transactions in India.

Anupam Manur acknowledges that UPI generates wider economic benefits, but argues that the current model also creates a problem: who ultimately bears the cost of running the system? He explains that the cost of operating UPI is substantial, while the government subsidises only a portion of it.

Manur says, “When UPI came about, India was miles ahead of the world in some sense. It was truly revolutionary.” But he argues that the costs leave new entrants with insufficient incentive, which has affected private-sector innovation. “Private players are just not incentivized to innovate.”

The discussion then moves from the economics of UPI to the politics of its messaging. Abhinandan argues that the government has often reduced complicated policy questions to easily marketable slogans: “I think the problem is, like many things that Mr. Modi does ever since he’s come, let’s count his slogans. He’s a fantastic ad man.”

The panel then turns to the BJP’s push for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC).

Mihira offers a qualified position. She makes clear that she supports the idea of a UCC in principle, particularly as a route towards greater equality.

But she distinguishes that principle from the particular version being discussed. She says, “What I have a problem with is this particular type of Uniform Civil Code because it is not based in secularism and it is not based in feminism.”

Rinchen questions whether we should even call this a ‘uniform civil code’, given the carve-outs that exist for Scheduled Tribes in states like Uttarakhand, where the BJP has implemented its version of it.

He also argues that the focus on polygamy in the UCC debate distracts from the larger issue of inheritance rights for women. “This whole bigamy, this whole polygamy thing is a red herring; it’s overstated,” he adds, while Mihira breaks down the real legal questions surrounding inheritance if the BJP actually cared about women’s rights.

All this and more.

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Timecodes

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:07:03 – Headlines

00:12:01 – MDR on UPI

00:44:03 – Anupam’s Recommendations

00:48:32 – Manisha on Brazil politics

00:55:32 – UCC

01:25:52 – Mihira’s Recommendations

01:28:32 – Letters

01:46:08 – Recommendations