-The Indian Express The budget aims at economic growth and social protection. This is welcome. So are provisions for financial inclusion, housing, water, sanitation and rural electrification. But there are also substantial cuts in crucial social sectors and key omissions that are likely to undermine its stated economic objectives. Consider agriculture, environment and women. First, double-digit growth or poverty reduction is unlikely without strong, sustained agricultural growth. In 2014-15, agriculture grew at...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance Economic Outlook, Prospects and Policy Challenges Macroeconomic fundamentals in 2014-15 have dramatically improved. Highlights are: * Inflation has declined by over 6 percentage points since late 2013. * The current account deficit has declined from a peak of 6.7 percent of GDP (in Q3, 2012-13) to an estimated 1.0 percent in the coming fiscal year. * Foreign portfolio flows have stabilized the rupee, exerting downward pressure on long-term interest...

-Business Standard On the basis of resource-efficiency, pollution and compliance, state-owned power generation firms fare the worst A staggering 90 per cent of coal-based thermal power plants in India fare unsatisfactorily on the environmental front, shows a recent analysis. While state-owned power generation companies are among the worst performers, plants owned by private firms have performed better on environmental and energy parameters. In a report released by the Centre for Science...

-The Hindu Business Line   There's no Malthusian problem right now, but without sustainable farming the world will be in serious trouble Food security, a seemingly innocuous phrase, is fast becoming one of the most widely discussed topics of our time. A lot of us would associate ‘food security' as a challenge for the impoverished but it could potentially become a much more widespread problem straddling across geographic and economic divides. The issue of...

-The Tribune In India, mounting demographic pressures are leading to soil degradation. About 17 per cent of the global human and 11 per cent of livestock population is being sustained on a mere 2 per cent of the world's land and 4 per cent of its freshwater resources. The year 2015 has been designated as the International Year of the Soils by the United Nations. Recently, December 5 was commemorated as World...