-The Hindu A lack of sufficient funds, rampant payment delays and abysmal wage rates are to blame The ?11,000 crore fraud that diamond merchant Nirav Modi is said to have created is a figure that needs to be put in perspective. The total amount of wages pending under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme for the whole country (2016-17) was around ?11,000 crore too. This sum is a...

-The Pioneer While the Government has done its bit to boost the output of pulses, it has done little to check the nexus between politicians and grain traders For several decades, production of pulses in India has fallen substantially short in terms of consumption. This persistent deficit has led to intermittent bouts of spike in prices as imports (needed to plug it) have often come after lag and have failed to reach...

-PTI “Repercussions from the currency exchange initiative will likely persist through the first quarter of 2017.” Washington: India’s demonetisation led to huge cash shortages that have “adversely affected” consumption and like a “vacuum cleaner” it sucked in cash and then was slowly replacing the currency, a senior IMF official has said. “You’ve heard about so-called ‘helicopter drops’ of money with unconventional monetary policies, so one way to characterise this demonetisation initiative is as...

-Deccan Herald Water in India has now become a contentious issue due to rise in demand, climate change and growing mismanagement. With erratic rainfall and recurring droughts in 2012, 2015 and 2016, “water saving” has become a high priority for the governments. As the agriculture sector consumes 80% of freshwater in the country, micro-irrigation –  drip and sprinkler irrigation – has been catapulted as a policy priority because drip and sprinkler irrigation...

-The Financial Express Persistence of high food inflation can harden the monetary policy stance and make fiscal choices difficult Food inflation increased to 7.9% in May 2016 as against 4.23% in April. This sudden spurt in food inflation is attributed to vegetable prices, followed by pulses and sugar. Is this a short-term spike or will it be a persistent one? If it is going to be a persistent one with pass-through effects,...