-The Indian Express Push for cash transfers tacitly asks citizens to fend for themselves The implementation of cash transfers by a state would necessarily entail: one, the identification of beneficiaries on the basis of predefined eligibility parameters; and two, calculating the exact amount of money, equivalent to the monetary value of the subsidy that beneficiaries were supposed to get, and transferring it into their bank accounts — with the intention that they...

-The Hindu Food inflation remained positiv, at 3.8 % compared to what it was in May 2014. Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation was -2.36 per cent in May, marking the seventh consecutive month in which it has been negative, compared to -2.65 per cent in April. Food inflation remained positive, at 3.8 per cent compared to what it was in May 2014. However, the consensus among analysts is that this will not...

-The Hindu The National Nutrition Monitoring Board (NNMB), set up in 1972, has been doing silent, and remarkable service to the nation. We tend to look at a nation’s progress increasingly, and almost exclusively, in terms of its economic and business statistics. India is now invited to the high table as a growing economy, with its annual financial growth rate of over 4 per cent. Internally too, we have setup many mechanisms,...

-The Indian Express Modi government has damaged the rights-based legislative framework without spelling out what will replace it. No  one in the last two decades has come to power with greater euphoria than the Narendra Modi sarkar. It has taken less than a year for that euphoria to recede and change to disappointment. There are sufficient reasons for this change. The celebrations of the first year in office of  this government are in sharp...

-The Indian Express We need a contingency plan that combines real-time technology with robust insurance and easy credit. On April 22, 2015 the Indian Met Department (IMD) released its first forecast for the upcoming monsoon rains, saying it is likely to be below normal, at 93 per cent of the long period average (LPA). Only a week before that, on April 15, a private forecaster, Skymet, had predicted normal rains (102...