-The Hindu Ideological labels are likely to mislead by channelling the debate into issues of capitalism and socialism and detract from the real problem George Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Having forgotten the license-permit-quota-raj that enveloped us from 1950 to 1980 and its ‘crony socialism,' many intellectuals, mediapersons and politicians have now discovered ‘crony capitalism.' The license raj consisted of stifling controls imposed on...
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Smart cards cut fund leakage in MGNREGA by 12%: Study-Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-The Business Standard Study also says MGNREGA workers spent almost 21 minute less in collecting each payment made electronically compared with manual transfer Even as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has put on hold its ambitious unique identification (UID) code-linked cash transfer programme, a study by noted economists Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus and Sandip Sukhtankar shows that leakage of funds allocated for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)...
More »Karthik Muralidharan, an assistant professor in the University of California interviewed by Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-The Business Standard Since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government decided to put on hold the Aadhaar-based subsidy transfer for domestic liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), questions have been raised about the future of one of Congress' most ambitious initiatives aimed at plugging leakages. Two months after the government move, a pioneering study by economists Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus and Sandip Sukhtankar showed leakages dropped 12 per cent when smart cards were...
More »Sharp rise in FAO Food Price Index
-FAO Rome: The FAO Food Price Index rose sharply in March, up 4.8 points, or 2.3 percent, to an average of 212.8, the highest level since May 2013. "The Index was influenced, as expected, by unfavourable weather conditions in the US and Brazil and geopolitical tensions in the Black Sea region," said Abdolreza Abbassian, FAO Senior Economist. These and other influences are reviewed in greater detail in the AMIS Market Monitor report, the...
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-The Business Standard Latest climate report raises the stakes for India The latest report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sounds more alarming than its earlier versions - and for good reasons. Even as global warming has begun to hit life, property, infrastructure and the economy, there seems little let-up in environmentally harmful activities. Going by the IPCC report, which was released in Japan on Monday, a rise...
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