There is some respite expected for India in terms of prices of imported commodities. This may ease the depletion of its foreign exchange reserves. The country has faced a widening of its merchandise trade deficit from US$ -17.91 billion to US$ -26.91 billion between October 2021 and October 2022. The commodity price data provided by the World Bank in December 2022 (termed as The Pink Sheet) shows that energy prices plummeted by...

-The Tribune The agency-wise share indicates that agricultural credit dispensation in the country is heavily dependent on commercial banks and points towards the poor credit delivery capability of cooperative banks and regional rural banks. THE availability of finance is a key driver of progress in any sector. In the case of agriculture, access to adequate credit assumes vital significance since most of the agriculturists are small or marginal farmers. It has been...

Like the fight against poverty and hunger, the progress made by mankind against tuberculosis (TB) in the years up to 2019 has either slowed, stalled, or reversed, and global TB targets are off track due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, although the reported number of people newly diagnosed with TB decreased from 7.1 million to 5.8 million between 2019 and 2020, the number went up to 6.4 million in 2021....

-PTI/ The Telegraph Confederation of Indian Industry, which was part of the virtual pre-Budget meeting, calls for an aggressive focus on privatisation of public sector units The Budget should focus on measures to accelerate job creation and broaden the tax base by rationalising GST and personal income tax slabs to boost consumption, industry bodies said in their pre-Budget meeting with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday. "The external scenario is likely to continue...

-Livemint.com Just as much of today’s world is locked into fossil-fuel dependence, Indian farmers are in a trap of water-guzzling crop production that is not environmentally sustainable. The annual United Nations climate conference underway in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, has entire days devoted to two crucial sectors that directly impact the lives of millions in India: agriculture and water. At a time of stagnant incomes and groundwater depletion, we must enable farmers to...