-Financial Express Trade and World Trade Organisation (WTO) discussions thrive on perception. Recent actions by the US seek to portray India as flouting WTO rules and distorting the global market by providing huge subsidies to cotton. Left unchallenged, the hypocrisy of the US narrative on cotton could sway WTO members, particularly the cotton-producing African countries. So, what is the FRAcas on India’s cotton subsidies all about? Shorn of legalese, the US has...

-The Hindu It is time to make victim impact statements mandatory In Mallikarjun Kodagil (Dead) v. State of Karnataka (2018), the Supreme Court stressed the need to have a victim impact statement “so that an appropriate punishment is awarded to the convict”. This throws up many issues that are of interest to the victims of crimes. The term victim came to be defined in criminal law only in 2009 in India. The victim...

-The Indian Express There were 5,917 instances of bank FRAud in 2017-18 as against 5,076 cases the previous year, show the data released Friday. FRAudsters have looted Rs 41,167.7 crore from the banking system in 2017-18, a sharp jump of 72 per cent from Rs 23,933 crore the previous year, despite “stringent monitoring and vigilance”, according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). There were 5,917 instances of bank...

-The Hindu NDZ along Kerala coast will be significantly reduced giving room for constructions Kochi: The coastal belt of Kerala is likely to witness a flurry of construction activities which may further deteriorate the quality of the FRAgile ecosystem. With the notification of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) 2018, the No Development Zone (NDZ) along the Kerala coast will be significantly reduced giving room for constructions for tourism facilities towards the seaward side...

It is being said by economists that unlike the issue of low food production that gripped Indian agriculture for long in the past, the present problem is about farmers not getting remunerative prices against the crops that they are growing. According to farmer leaders, the policymakers are too late to realise that bitter truth. As a result, there is a growing disenchantment in the rural hinterland against the ruling government...