-The Times of India Brace for higher fuel bills as the government has formally started the consultation process for raising diesel and cooking gas prices - the latter with an increased annual cap of nine subsidized refills - in line with the recommendations of a finance ministry panel. The committee under former bureaucrat Vijay Kelkar, tasked to suggest a roadmap for cutting fiscal deficit, has suggested raising diesel price periodically to align...

-Economic and Political Weekly The recent debate on the acceptability of foreign direct investment in the retail sector in India has been mostly political. It is necessary to look into the pros and cons of FDI in retail from a purely economic point of view. This article identifi es the safeguards that should be undertaken before allowing giant multinationals to function in the country. Abhirup Sarkar (abhirup@isical.ac.in) is with the Indian Statistical...

-PTI Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday asked banks to gear up for implementation of the ambitious cash transfer scheme, which seeks to transfer money directly into beneficiary accounts in 51 districts from January 1. "There is lot of work to be done from January 1. There are huge burden, huge responsibility going to fall on your shoulders. It is banks that have to make cash transfer scheme successful. I know you...

-Reuters The amount of land needed to grow crops worldwide is at a peak and an area more than twice the size of France can return to nature by 2060 due to rising yields and slower population growth, a group of experts said on Monday. The report, conflicting with U.N. studies that say more cropland will be needed in coming decades to avert hunger and price spikes as the world population rises...

-PTI Powered by the growth in emerging market giants China and India, coal is set to surpass Oil as as the world’s top fuel source by around 2017, the International Energy Agency forecast on Tuesday. Coal’s share of the global energy mix continues to rise, and by 2017 coal will come close to surpassing Oil as the world’s top energy source, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said, releasing its annual Medium-Term Coal...