-The Indian Express Manifesto pledges to raise farmers’ incomes and increase MSPs take away focus from the structural reforms that are urgently required. It is a season of promising freebies to lure voters. The Congress leads in making these promises. The party has promised to waive farmers’ loans in Chhattisgarh within 10 days if it is voted to office. It has also promised a hike in minimum support price (MSP) of...
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Jean Dreze, development economist, interviewed by G Sampath (The Hindu)
-The Hindu The Indian education system would be a good place to start with reforms, says the development economist Jean Drèze is possibly the world’s most famous Belgian-Indian. He has lived in India since 1979, and is an Indian citizen. As a development economist and activist, he has helped draft some startlingly pro-people legislations, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, and the National Food Security Act, 2013....
More »Giving info on graft complaints against ministers will be cumbersome: PMO
-PTI Replying to an RTI query, it said the PMO receives complaints against various Union ministers and high-level functionaries from time to time The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has refused to share details of alleged corruption complaints received against Union ministers, saying providing such information "may be a subjective as well as a cumbersome exercise". The PMO's assertion comes at a time when a senior officer in the country's premier probe agency --...
More »Demonetisation has not worked, no two views about it: Bimal Jalan -V Kumara Swamy
-The Telegraph Former RBI governor chats about economy, RBI-Centre standoff and his latest book Even 15 years after quitting the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), former governor Bimal Jalan lapses into RBI-speak whenever he doesn’t want to say much on an issue. We are in Jalan’s office on the sixth floor of an apartment block, a few hundred metres from the Delhi headquarters of the RBI. At the very outset, he tells me...
More »Why farms of every type and size have to be climate smart
-Hindustan Times This climate impact on agriculture is a cause for worry: the sector accounts for a large share in gross domestic product (16%) and employment (49%). Poor agricultural performance can lead to high inflation, rural distress, and political restiveness, as recent rural agitations and farmer suicides have shown. An annual review by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), a wing of the agriculture ministry, has said that crops, plantations...
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