In this year's budget, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has essentially tried to consolidate the gains from the initiatives he had launched during the previous two budgets. Thus, in agriculture there is no new initiative except increasing the target for agricultural credit to Rs.5,75,000 crore during 2012-13. This represents an increase of over Rs.1,00,000 crore from last year. The interest rate of four per cent recommended by the National Commission...
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A life saver-Shamnad Basheer
Compulsory licence can go a long way to ensure access to cheaper drugs In a momentous development, the Indian patent office issued the ever-compulsory licence in a highly contentious pharmaceutical patent case. The decision is a thumping victory for several patients and health activists who have been fighting what can only be labelled as highly inequitable pricing strategies by multinational drug firms for the past several decades. In August 2011, Natco, an...
More »Rail Budget 2012: After a decade, all tickets to cost more
-The Times of India Railway minister Dinesh Trivedi on Wednesday did what none of his predecessors had done for almost a decade - he hiked passenger fares across the board, following up on the increase in freight charges announced immediately after the recent round of assembly elections. While biting the bullet in hiking fares, he chose to couch the increase as ranging from a mere two paise per km for second class...
More »Why this will be a reform budget-Surjit S Bhalla
Most of us don’t even get a single shot at making history — Manmohan Singh has a second chance The fiscal deficit is an outcome, not a policy. It is the net resolution of the policies pertaining to taxes and expenditure. It is worth analysing separately the two components of the deficit. The table reports the results of relating the tax and expenditure share of GDP to per capita income for...
More »Inflation rises to 6.95%in February
-PTI Inflation rose to 6.95 per cent in February because of sharp increase in food prices, especially vegetables and protein-based items. Inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), was 6.55 per cent in January. In February, 2011, it was 9.54 per cent. According to the official data released on Wednesday, food inflation was 6.07 per cent in February against (-) 0.52 per cent in January. Pulses turned expensive by 7.91 per cent and...
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