Stung by the skyrocketing retail prices of onion in the country, the Centre on Thursday announced abolition of Import duties and banned its exports for an indefinite period. Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, who is personally monitoring the situation, asked the State governments to take strong action against hoarders. He asked the Commerce Ministry to Import onions to cool down prices. The government directed its three trading companies — STC, PEC and MMTC...

THE issue of foodgrain management policy has assumed renewed Importance with several reports in the media of large-scale wastage and diversion from the public distribution system (PDS). In a cogently-argued paper recently, Prof Kaushik Basu, a well-known economist and the chief economic adviser in the ministry of finance, has argued for foodgrain to be released in lots of much smaller size into the market, than is presently done by the...

The government has approved Rs 350 crore scheme to study impact of climate change on agriculture and reduce production losses. Approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, the main objective of new plan scheme ‘National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture’ is to assess impact of climate change on agriculture and allied sectors in the country and evolve cost-effective adaptation and mitigation strategies. The scheme will be implemented in the remaining part...

The first step towards opening "secret" files maintained by civil servants and public authorities was taken by Parliament through Freedom of Information Act, 2002. It was replaced by Right to Information Act in 2005. The objective was to give meaning to the word "civil servant". For, the babus had been groomed by the system to hide almost everything from those for whose service they were employed. Attitude is an Important aspect...

For some reason, governments - as well as the development ''industry'' as a whole - have always had a tendency to look for universal panaceas, particular silver bullets that will solve all or most of their implementation problems and somehow achieve the development project for them. The latest such initiative bullet that seems to have been accepted as a silver bullet is the Unique Identification Project, which is now seen...