-The Hindu Business Line A creeping crisis in soyabean in Madhya Pradesh has given rise to this contradiction. Different policies are called for The Indian policymaker seems to suffer from the musk deer syndrome. The musk deer is a rare species that produces musk in its own body. But it does not realise this and searches endlessly for the source of the aroma. India faces a similar dilemma. On the one hand, the...

-The Indian Express The reality of rural distress is sinking in only now for policymakers. There can be no better illustration of the vagaries of the weather than Chennai’s streets being inundated with water and the second India-South Africa cricket test in Bangalore suffering washout due to rains, even as drought stalks much of the country. That really is the case today, with Tamil Nadu, Kerala, southern and coastal Karnataka, Rayalaseema...

-Livemint.com The success of cash transfers will depend on how well the government addresses design bugs The recent economics conclave hosted by the finance ministry in the capital has rekindled the debate on cash transfers in India. Among the invitees to the conclave was one of the most vocal critics of India’s transition to direct cash transfers, Jean Dreze, a development economist and an advisor to the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance (UPA)...

-The Hindu Ten years of implementation of the Right to Information Act has spawned a new breed of activism and citizenship The Right to Information (RTI) Act has completed 10 years of implementation. According to a conservative estimate based on the Information Commission’s annual reports, there are at least 50 lakh RTI applications filed in India every year. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative used the data to estimate that just under 1...

-The Tribune To ensure stable prices of pulses and attractive returns for producers, policies of domestic prices and tariffs should blend. Import duties must be calibrated with demand. As the Indian economy grows at a rate of 7 per cent plus, assuming low growth as an aberration, the food basket will diversify. Within grains, the movement will be to pulses as shown by the  expert group on pulse production. The yield and...