The Union government’s decision to revive a long-forgotten concept of primary producers’ companies (PPCs) ought to be welcomed. Such companies can help small farmers and individual craftsmen come together to derive economies of scale. The idea of farmers’ companies which extend the benefit of being a registered firm while allowing farmers to derive all the benefits of agricultural land ownership, was mooted nearly a decade ago. After much debate, the...

Petty criminals who break into condom vending machines are causing concern among Aids and HIV-prevention activists in the Indian city of Mumbai. Over 3,000 condom vending machines have been installed in the city as a part of an HIV Aids prevention programme. However, more than 500 of the machines have been damaged by petty criminals who break into them for fun, for small change or for free condoms. During the Hindu...

Insufficiency and prescribing medicines from outside continues  CRM draws attention to ‘irrational’ use and non-availability of essential medicines Supplies are mostly top-down, based on availability instead of being demand-based No State provides free medicines to below the poverty line (BPL) patients under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). “The insufficiency of drugs and thereby the imperative of prescribing medicines from outside continue widely. This could also be linked to insufficiency of understanding...

With the Ruchika molestation case causing an uproar, Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said on Friday that the Government has decided to "fast track" cases relating to women, including those involving rape, molestation and dowry. "At the National Consultation on Judicial Reforms held recently, the Government and the Judiciary have decided to prioritise and classify cases related to women, children and the disabled...classification is an important component of the...

I first met Paul Samuelson in 1962, as a student at MIT. A decade later, I had the pleasure of co-authoring with him a paper on the Theory of Index Numbers (American Economic Review, 1974) and another in the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal (1984). I last met him a couple of years back, on a sidewalk in Belmont, Massachussets. He was driving down the street and stopped upon seeing...