-TheWire.in There is no reason for courts to not take expert assistance in complex matters and it should resort to this route more often. In India, and indeed many countries around the world, development work is seen at a crossroads with protecting the world’s natural environment. Agriculture is the oldest and biggest intrusion into nature, which has historically upset our ecological equilibrium. Besides this, forests have to be cut down; rivers have to...

-The Indian Express Policy coordination between the Centre and states will be crucial for implementing this ambitious reform agenda. The National Statistical Office will release the second advance GDP estimates for 2020-21 at the end of February. The first advance estimate had, in early January, forecasted a contraction of 7.7 per cent in 2020-21. This was due largely to an expected, sharp contraction in both industry and services. The second advance estimates...

-The Hindu The government’s announced fiscal policy stance and the fiscal regime it is running seem contradictory There used to be a time — and this was well before India began to globalise — when each Union Budget announced sales tax increases on tobacco products, especially cigarettes. The demand for cigarettes being somewhat inelastic, the rise in tax was expected to be a shot in the arm for the revenue-starved government of...

-Livemint.com The production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme is a central government scheme that seeks to make India an efficient, equitable and resilient manufacturing hub, on the lines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a self-reliant India. Mint explains: The production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme is a central government scheme that seeks to make India an efficient, equitable and resilient manufacturing hub, on the lines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a self-reliant...

-The Hindu No decision taken yet on which banks will be privatised, Finance Minister says. Fresh from presenting a Budget that represents a clean break from past policies, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was in Chennai last weekend to hear feedback from industrialists and common citizens. “This is a Budget that was put through the wringer to ensure that every number was credible and achievable and did not reflect over-ambition,” she said,...