-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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31 Per Cent LS MPs Face Criminal Charges: Report
-Outlook Some 31 per cent of MPs in the Lok Sabha have criminal cases pending against them, and their pay package is 68 times higher than the national per capita income, according to the National Social Watch Report on Governance and Development-2013 released here today. "The pay package of MPs in India is higher than that of their counterparts in Singapore, Japan, Italy, and Pakistan. In terms of the ratio of the...
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 »In the Balance: The National Food Security Act vis-Ã -vis the WTO Agreement on Agriculture -Sudha Narayanan
-eSocialSciences.com This piece analyzes the implications of the National Food Security Act for India's commitments under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) in the context of widespread concern that they might be mutually incompatible. An analysis of support to rice and wheat for the period 1995-2012 suggests that the current scale of operations are at levels implied by the NFSA and that it is possible to leverage existing provisions in the...
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