The policy deep-freeze and land acquisition woes have resulted in over 500 projects, mostly power and steel, being shelved or put on hold during 2011-12, entailing a total investment of over Rs 5,00,000 crore. According to CMIE estimates, during the year Rs 1,70,000 crore worth of investment projects had been abandoned by project developers, and another Rs 3,30,000 crore worth were stalled on account of various procedural issues. The core sectors, led...

-The Business Standard Are subsidised exports the only solution? Surely the intellect of a high-level inter-ministerial committee is not required to conclude that the subsidised export of wheat and the disposal of grain at discounted rates at home can help ease the current grain congestion. However, this seems indeed to be the conclusion reached by the high-level panel set up by the prime minister under the chairmanship of his Chief Economic...

In a Bangladeshi folk story, a disabled grandfather is carried by his son in a basket, to be abandoned in the forest. On seeing this, the grandson calls out, 'Father, please be sure to bring back the basket. I will need it when you grow old'. Three thousand ageing men and women gathered in Delhi in the blazing midsummer heat to demand a universal pension for all aged people, not...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s statement in Parliament that the Government plans to shift subsidies from chemical fertilizers to organic manures has finally earned him some admiration from grassroots organisations working with small and marginal farmers in the country’s vast dry-lands. Pawar’s statement, if translated into policy action, may go a long way in improving the condition of some of India’s poorest farmers in the rain-fed areas which account for...

Health activists say new policy may not address the weaknesses in ongoing routine immunisation programmes and would flood poor countries with new vaccines When the global health leaders meet in Geneva from May 21 to 26 for the World Health Organization's 65th General Assembly, introducing new vaccines in the low- and middle-income countries would be high on their agenda. A “global draft vaccine action plan”, available on WHO's website, details the implementation...