-The Business Standard   Concerned over rising inflation, the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) today suggested opening up multi-brand retail to foreign investors and changes in agriculture marketing laws to check the rate of price rise. “We are taking a clear position on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail. Of course, it is a recommendation, not policy,” said chief economic advisor and IMG chairman Kaushik Basu. The IMG, he added, favours formulation of a...

India has large wheat stocks already yet policy dictates they increase. In states like Punjab, Haryana, UP and Gujarat prices have fallen and are below the minimum support prices. This is a policy-induced outcome. A safe game in grains is fine, given the global politics of grain trade and the great ability of Indian politics to subsidise the wrong man in the vote bank — but how safe is safe? The...

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee may have complained of inheriting empty coffers from the Left Front government that ruled the state for 34 years, but cold statistics reveals that it created a base for her to build upon. During the last few years of the Left rule, Bengal witnessed rapid industrialization. Former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee steered the state to fourth position in terms of rapid growth of industry...

If the problems are macro, think micro. That seems to have been the guiding principle for Lekha-Mendha, the Maharashtra village that last month became the first in India to win the right to grow, harvest and sell bamboo. Such rights are the key goal of a five-year-old central law which aims to give tribal communities control over some resources of the jungles they live in. “There is no point in looking out...

-The Business Standard   Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee was being economical with the truth when he said that last Saturday’s petrol price hike decision was entirely that of oil marketing companies (OMCs). True, the government correctly but belatedly deregulated petrol pricing several months ago, but it is clear that despite a sharp increase in global crude oil prices in the past six months, the OMCs restrained themselves from increasing domestic...