-The Economic Times A couple of months ago, the UPA government cleared Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail. It is a politically risky step. But for once, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh showed both spine and spunk biting the bullet. Since then, both Left parties and the BJP have expressed serious reservations over the decision. The general view is that it will affect the lakhs of small, indigenous kirana stores spread across...
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Cashing in-MK Venu
-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...
More »Are genetically modified crops finally on their way out of India?-Darryl D’Monte
-First Post Predictably, the recommendation by an experts’ panel appointed by the Supreme Court - that trials of genetically modified (GM) crops should be halted for 10 years – has stirred a hornet’s nest. Such a moratorium would include ongoing trials and the court rejected it. This follows on the heels of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture’s 492-page report published in August which asked for the banning of GM food crops...
More »Sick Chickens Come Home to Roost -Nidhi Nath Srinivas
-The Economic Times What are the chances that a chicken infected with bird flu will land on your plate? Zero. What are the chances that a bird flu infection will increase the price you pay for chicken and eggs? 100%. A virulent and deadly infection called avian influenza or bird flu is present in our country. The virus usually affects wild fowl which then infect chickens. The virus can survive for...
More »Serving up a better alternative for mother and child -Poongothai Aladi Aruna
-The Hindu The U.S. special supplement scheme for women, infants and children to prevent undernutrition is a model that India can learn from India’s economic growth over the last 15 years, and the growing size of the middle class, have become a source of attraction for international investors, especially in the retail food industry. However, the gap between the rich and the poor has only widened: nearly 40 per cent of the...
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