The central government claims that allowing foreign direct investment into India’s retail sector will benefit small farmers, expand employment and lower food inflation. What has been the experience in India with organised retail so far and what has been the global experience with FDI? Sukhpal Singh (sukhpal@iegindia.org) is currently at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. After being under relentless attack for a week, the United Progressiv Alliance government was forced to...

-The Times of India The subsidy for the poor is dwindling, but this has not deterred the government from lining up corporate houses' pockets. Last year, the Centre gave away potential revenue of Rs 4.6 lakh crore on account of various tax exemptions and Incentives to industrialists, compared to the Rs 1.54 lakh crore on subsidy to poor and farmers. There are direct tax Incentives and exemptions to businesses in the corporate...

It is clearly the absence of political will rather than a paucity of ideas that is responsible for the country's agrarian crisis. EXACTLY seven years ago this month, the Commission on Farmers' Welfare, appointed by the government of Andhra Pradesh, submitted its report to the then Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. His Congress government assumed office earlier that year replacing the Telegu Desam Party regime led by N. Chandrababu Naidu, which...

The government believes it is more important to be seen to be doing things than to be doing them well. The proposed food security legislation is another example of this tendency. The legislation exemplifies the self-defeating obduracy of bureaucratic modes of thinking. But the debate around it also exemplifies a failure of intellectual argument in India. Our debates often have this character. First, we spend a lot more time arguing...

-The Indian Express   After days of discussion and disagreement at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, in a final spurt of energy, the conference of parties managed to make some tangible progress. The Durban meet was about laying the bedrock principles for future negotiations, rather than detailed plans of who will cut emissions and by how much. The 190 nations at the meet agreed to “develop a new...