Illegality in India today touches almost every economic activity. It is both systemic and systematic. The Indian ruling class faced its severest crisis of credibility in 2010. Its past caught up with it and skeletons and scams were spilling out of its closets. The scams have a symbiotic relationship with the black economy. The number of scams is growing and so is the size of the black economy, which has reached...

Driven by trade interest, EU is pushing Endosulfan for POP listing Elimination of Endosulfan is expected to severely impact pollination and India’s farming India is today the second largest producer of horticulture crops (fruits at vegetables) and annually produces over 215 million mt (2008-09 figures source Ministry of Agriculture). This is almost as much as India’s total food grain production of 235 million mt (2008-09 figures source Ministry. of Agriculture). India’s export...

An innovative mechanism to save farmers from exploiting traders, which India implemented as a national model in the 70s, is now being blamed for rising vegetable prices.     Agricultural produce marketing committees (APMCs) have become archaic and vegetables and fruits need to be taken out of these local market hubs, analysts say. “They have turned into platform for hoarders, rather than a buyer-seller platform,” farm expert Sompal, who was formerly union agriculture...

Describing black money stashed away abroad by Indians as “pure and simple theft of national money”, the Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Centre's approach to tackling this menace and retrieving the huge amount kept in foreign banks. “Mind-boggling crime” When Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam furnished in a sealed cover a list of 26 names who had accounts with Liechtenstein Bank, a Bench of Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice S.S. Nijjar was...

Adequate involvement of academicians and policy makers is most essential for effective management of forests and common resources in the country, said Jairam Ramesh, Union minister of environment and forest. Delivering the keynote address at the inaugural ceremony of the 13th biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), being held in the city on Monday, the Union minister put the spotlight on the environmental...