-PTI The agriculture sector performed exceedingly well in 2011, with record grain production of over 240 million tonnes giving enough leeway for the government to lift a ban on exports of wheat and non-basmati rice and introduce the food security bill in Parliament. Farmers’ long-standing demand for crop loans at a 4% rate of interest was met during the year, although with a rider that the facility would be available to...

The Republic of India has a billion (and more) citizens who, at any given time, are involved in a thousand (and more) controversies. Knowing which controversy is the most significant is always hard, and often impossible, to judge. Even so, we can be fairly certain that 2011 will go down in Indian history as the year of the Great Lokpal Debate, just as 1962 was the year of the war...

-The Times of India   Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Friday that opening up of the multi-brand retail sector to foreign investment was still on the "mind of the government" and it would be pursued once consensus emerged among political parties and other stakeholders. Mukherjee blamed lack of consensus among political parties for the government's inability to implement the reform measure but said it did not reflect the lack of intention or...

-The Business Standard   Economists question veracity of the data; say too early for RBI to cut rates. Food inflation for the week ended December 10 fell to a four-year low of 1.81 per cent, after declining to 4.35 per cent last week. The decline is much sharper than what Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu expected — he had predicted less than three per cent food inflation by early January. What’s more, many...

-IANS The food security bill, that seeks to legally entitle majority of India's population to cheaper foodgrains, is not sustainable as it would put further pressure on fiscal deficit and worsen inflation, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) official said on Tuesday. "While the purpose of ensuring food security to the poor is laudable, the food security bill is not the right mechanism for it," said Biswa Nath Bhattacharyay, lead professional, Asian Development...