-The Economist Government borrowing generates inflation, widens the external deficit and crowds out much-needed investment. Can India now overcome its debt addiction? INDIA has grappled with its public finances for long enough. When presenting its first budget after independence in 1947, the finance minister of the day insisted that the country was not living beyond its means. Yet every budget since has failed to produce a surplus. India borrows more heavily...
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Why it's difficult to cut our diesel dependence -Atul Sethi
-The Times of India Every few days, Rajkumar Sharma, manager of a group housing society in Noida, makes the mandatory trip to the nearby petrol pump to pick up his quota of diesel. A few days back, even as he was on his 'diesel duty' as he calls it, he was making some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations. "Our average monthly consumption is around 400 litres which means a monthly expenditure of around...
More »India’s Narendra Modi and the Tale of Two Rapes -Shikha Dalmia
-Bloomberg.com One of the most obscene moments after the death of the gang-rape victim in New Delhi was a tweet by Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, offering regret and condolences to the dead woman’s family. Modi, who has quelled restive minorities by allowing attackers to subject women to unspeakable horrors, has done more than any man to numb his prudish country to sexual violence. Yet he...
More »Retail FDI: an imagined solution-VK Madhavan
-Live Mint FDI or not, there are problems that plague Indian agriculture and will need to be fixed first With the parliamentary vote on foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail out of the way, the government will proceed with the liberalization of this sector as it thinks it will improve the prospects of agriculture. Should we be worried about our small neighbourhood stores shutting down? The fears are overblown. Organized large-format retail...
More »How Wal-Mart got a foot in the door of India's retail market
-Reuters MUMBAI: Wal-Mart Stores Inc prepared its entry into India's supermarket sector in 2010 with a $100 million investment into a consultancy with no employees, no profits and a scant $14,000 in revenue. The company, called Cedar Support Services, might have been a more obvious selection four months earlier: it began its corporate life as Bharti Retail Holdings Ltd, according to documents filed with India's Registrar of Companies. The Cedar investment is now...
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