-Hindustan Times Every year in October, farmers in northern India burn stubble due to lack of alternative ways for its disposal. This leads to heavy pollution in Delhi-NCR before winters. This year too, as farmers begin to set stubble afire, HT travels to Punjab and Haryana for a ground report. Honking its way down the narrow Taraouri Road, in Haryana’s Karnal district, the 16-wheeler truck vanished into a dense cloud of...
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UP: Some comic no relief -Abheek Barman
-The Economic Times blog In 2016-17, the average Indian earned Rs 1.12 lakh a year, about Rs 9,300 every month. That year, the average person in Kerala made Rs 1.98 lakh a year, a monthly income of Rs 16,500. Uttar Pradesh is home to 200 million people, the combined population of Italy, South Korea and Spain. Each average person in UP earns Rs 72,300 every year, around Rs 6,000 per month. The...
More »Mixed Signals from the External Sector -CP Chandrasekhar
-NetworkIdeas.org A slew of numbers released recently point to rather peculiar and contrary trends in India’s balance of payments. Exports have revived but the trade and current account deficits widen, pointing to an excess of foreign exchange expenditure relative to earnings. While the widening current account deficit points to a weakening balance of payments position, foreign exchange reserves are at record levels. The foreign exchange reserve increase is funded largely by capital...
More »The Curious Case of the World Bank and Aadhaar Savings -Anand Venkatanarayanan
-TheWire.in The World Bank’s estimate that Aadhaar has the potential to save $11 billion in subsidies every year has repeatedly been used by the Centre to justify the programme. But does this figure hold up under close scrutiny? Evidence-based policy-making usually proceeds by outlining the problem at hand, discussing various solutions, conducting studies to understand the effectiveness of these solutions and then prescribing a course of action based on accumulated evidence. It’s safe...
More »SC glare on 'political bonds'
-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today sought the response of the Centre and the Election Commission on a joint petition filed by NGOs challenging amendments to the 2016 and 2017 Finance Acts that allegedly allow unfettered donations by corporate houses in India and foreign entities to parties in the name of "political bonds". According to advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi, appearing for the NGOs Association of Democratic Reforms and...
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