-The Times of India   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday flagged amendments to land acquisition law, allowing more foreign investment in retail trading and insurance and introduction of good and services tax (GST) as the key reforms agenda of the government. "I think the first thing is to sustain the momentum of growth that we have built," PM said during a meeting with a group of editors. But a key...

Rather than shutting its doors on ‘civil society’, the government should be thanking its stars that the latter wants to make law, not war. Distributing tee-shirts with this slogan would be a better use of the government’s ‘hearts and minds’ funds than the integrated action plan to counter Naxals, or the army’s tourism trips to Pune for Kashmiri schoolgirls. The UPA regime has been unprecedented for the spate of legislation that...

-The Telegraph   India is trying to build a consensus on liberalising foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail and defence, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee today told a gathering of business leaders and policy makers in Washington. “Discussions are under way to build a consensus on further liberalisation of the FDI policy in retail and defence,” Mukherjee said. Differences exist within the Indian government on the appropriate policies for foreign direct investments in the...

-PTI   To protect farmers' interests, India has made it clear to EU that duty-free imports of wheat, barley, lemons, apples, pears and meslin flour will not be allowed under the proposed free trade agreement (FTA). "The EU has asked for duty elimination on wheat, barely, apple, pear, lemon and meslin flour. We have clearly explained to them that India cannot offer concessions on any of these products," a senior Agriculture Ministry...

 I first met Professor Suresh Tendulkar when I was a student at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). He had also joined around the same time as a teacher at DSE. I have two vivid memories of him as a teacher. First, he would use the blackboard in a particular manner. He would start from one end of the board and write till the end of it. The board was...