-The Hindu Business Line This is on the back of swift rise in prices of raw materials and global natural gas India is likely to witness an unprecedented jump in the Central government’s fertiliser subsidy on the back of swift rise in prices of raw materials and global natural gas. According to ratings agency Crisil, the government’s fertiliser subsidy bill is likely to be higher by ₹50,000 crore to touch the total...

-Newsclick.in The Narendra Modi government has carried the practice of making low budgetary allocations for MGNREGS to its limit. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme or MGNREGS was introduced by the United Progressive Alliance-I government despite opposition from the neo-liberal lobby within it, owing inter alia to the active intervention of the Left, which was supporting that government from outside. The scheme was restrictive from the beginning: it promised a maximum...

-Down to Earth The much-delayed climate summit in Glasgow did little to acknowledge that combatting climate change requires cooperation at a scale never seen before The 26th Conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — CoP26) is done and dusted, and the world has signed on to the Glasgow Climate Pact. The question now is whether this pact will go far enough to keep the world at a...

-MoneyControl.com The CPI-based inflation in September 2021 was at 4.35 percent and in October 2020 it was 7.61 percent. India’s retail inflation rate, which is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose to 4.48 percent in the month of October 2021, data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) revealed on November 12. There was a marginal increase in retail inflation in October due to an uptick in food...

One is almost certain to hear this from an economist that if something is available at free of cost or at a subsidised rate thanks to government intervention, then people tend to overuse or overconsume such goods/ commodities. So, the best solution is to create a market for such 'almost freely available' or 'highly subsidised' goods or commodities. Once people start paying to use or consume such goods/ commodities, they...