In line with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s budget announcement on Monday that the government is looking at direct cash transfers as an alternative to the current subsidy on kerosene and fertilizers and to prevent leakages, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is planning to open Aadhaar-linked bank accounts for the purpose. These can be used for other financial transactions as well. The authority is in the process of empanelling banks...

The policy is to promote specific high-value segments within agriculture, where corporate houses have major profit interests. A COMMON compliment that Pranab Mukherjee's Union Budget for 2011-12 received from the media was its proclaimed “friendliness” to agriculture and rural areas. It was not just the media; members of India Inc. welcomed the Budget as “focussed” on agriculture. However, a close look at the Budget estimates reveals a different picture. Public...

India faces the challenge of inappropriate use of antibiotics while Bharat copes with poor access to treatment, resulting in a policy conundrum and inaction. India was recently in the news for the wrong reasons. The serious threat posed by the newly discovered microbe, NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo--lactamase-1), resistant to many antibiotics, triggered alarm and panic. Predictions that the country will not meet the millennium development goal for child mortality caused dismay....

Food security and organic farming can go hand in hand. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today gave a green signal to efforts under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture to promote green manuring and organic farming while talking about bringing in the Food Securtiy Act this year, settling the debate on high pesticide and chemical fertiliser use in Punjab and Haryana. He said his government is mulling to also bring urea,...

Rattled by soaring food prices and falling farm productivity, the FM has announced a slew of measures to boost the farm sector and vowed to deepen the process of attracting more private investment in agriculture and agro-processing. He announced an increase in bank lending for farm sector as well as interest subsidy to farmers who pay short-term crop loans on time. "I propose to enhance additional subvention to 3% in 2011-12....