-The Hindu There is no disparagement of subsidies in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh because those who attack the social welfare policies of the Congress regard them as examples of good governance by a party of the Right Three propositions dominate explanations of the Congress party's rout, the Bharatiya Janata Party's impressive victory and the Aam Aadmi Party's stunning success in Delhi in the recent Assembly elections. One, that there is a strong...
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Cereal offenders -Ila Patnaik
-The Indian Express Food inflation owes largely to agricultural markets being regulated by outdated laws. The RBI governor, Raghuram Rajan, has a difficult task this week. He has to decide whether to keep interest rates constant or raise them - bearing in mind the possible taper of the US Fed's bond buying programme, a decline in industrial production and a rise in inflation. The sharp increase in consumer price-based inflation, to more...
More »India’s fiction of victory at Bali - Biraj Patnaik
-Live Mint By giving in to pressure from the US and EU, India has landed itself and the developing world in a bad trade deal The stenographic cacophony in the Indian media had a singular triumphalist message from the ninth World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meet in Bali: India had secured a major victory by safeguarding its food security programme and stood its ground against the US and the European Union...
More »The truth of India’s position at Bali
-Live Mint The national food security law is in trouble from an unlikely source The outcome of the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit at Bali has been projected as a great victory for the Indian government by its spokespersons. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In exchange for a temporary reprieve on its food support programme, India has bartered away the bargaining chip of trade facilitation, which Western negotiators demanded. The...
More »Why beg at Bali? -Uttam Gupta
-The Indian Express India faces no risk of violating its commitments under WTO The Indian delegation, led by commerce minister Anand Sharma, is approaching the WTO Ministerial in Bali with a ‘begging bowl'. The government has agreed to the so-called ‘peace clause'-a euphemism for not taking any penal action for violating commitments under Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)-proposed by WTO Director General but with the caveat that this will remain in place until...
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