-Business Standard On the basis of resource-efficiency, pollution and compliance, state-owned power generation firms fare the worst A staggering 90 per cent of coal-based thermal power plants in India fare unsatisfactorily on the environmental front, shows a recent analysis. While state-owned power generation companies are among the worst performers, plants owned by private firms have performed better on environmental and energy parameters. In a report released by the Centre for Science...

-Reuters   Subsidy cuts may still fail to impress investors: Experts New Delhi: India may slash its food and fuel subsidy bill by about $8 billion in next week's budget, two sources said, but despite the impressive headline, the cut is not as radical as free market champions had hoped for in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first full budget. Most of the 20 per cent cut in the budget for subsidies results from lower...

-FirstPost.com So we're all familiar with the argument that direct cash transfers (also known as direct benefit transfer or DBT) is a more efficient and cheaper way of delivering subsidies to the poor. Did you also know that this could also give a spending push to the economy? That's what a Crisil Insight report, Cascading cash, catalysing consumption, says, pointing out that an unconditional cash transfer will raise the discretionary spend of...

-The Hindu Tropical diseases have often been neglected by pharmaceuticals because the size of the drug market is smaller, people have lower incomes and companies are uncertain about IPR January marked an important breakthrough in the fight against tropical diseases. Researchers and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in Delhi found a drug candidate that prevented TB and malaria pathogens from infecting human blood cells. It is not just that...

-The Hindu Business Line Outstanding subsidy bills for the fertiliser sector will exceed ₹40,000 crore by March, according to the Fertiliser Association of India (FAI). Domestic urea manufacturers are the hardest hit with dues amounting to ₹30,000 crore. The industry also sent an ‘SOS' to the Finance Minister appealing to intervene and institute a Special Banking Arrangement to help tide of the liquidity crisis facing fertiliser manufacturers. "While the domestic urea industry is...