-Livemint.com A growth-first approach may work in the short-term, but India needs to prioritize sustainability simultaneously The Union Budget 2016-17, seeking to “transform India”, has been hailed for its emphasis on agricultural growth and sustainability. Symbolically, the finance minister put “agriculture and farmers’ welfare” first in his nine-point agenda. The words “agriculture” and “farmer” found 20 and 32 mentions, respectively, in the budget speech, the highest in the last decade. On the...

-The Hindu The Finance Minister’s prescriptions are a classic case of being unable to see the wood for the trees, be it on the tax proposals, the rural outreach or the bank bailout. It was a marathon achievement: 12,187 words in 111 minutes. True, there were no interruptions; the Finance Minister virtually sent the House to sleep. I have listened to many Budget speeches; and I cannot say that Dr. Manmohan Singh...

-Frontline.in An initiative focussed on Kerala’s development experience exposes a worrying trend of rising inequality and proposes a strategy for sustainable and equitable growth. THE fourth international Congress on Kerala Studies, organised by the A.K.G. Centre for Study and Research in Thiruvananthapuram on January 9-10, has generated much interest for its focus on a worrying new trend in Kerala’s development experience: rising inequality and marginalisation of large sections of people despite...

-TheHansIndia.com Agriculture is intertwined with soil, plant and human beings. In shaping the research, how much attention was paid to these three components? There is a need to reassess or evaluate the institute, whether it has retained the virtues of the pioneers who started it Improvements in farming could be traced in certain regions of the world, where agriculture has become prime occupation of life. Hence, the struggle and labours of few...

-The Hindu In order to have a chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need suitable technologies to make low-carbon transitions in development right away Now that the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP) meet is long over, countries need to concentrate on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which need to peak soon and go to zero by mid-century if there is to be a chance of preventing average...