KOCHI: In a rare move, the Union government has launched an ‘Appeal to the People of Kerala’ advertisement campaign to counter the ‘false propaganda’ against the Indo-ASEAN free trade agreement (FTA). Rarely does the Centre come out with such State-specific advertisement campaigns to counter resistance to its policy, it is pointed out. The half-page ads in the newspapers, issued in ‘public interest’ by the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is...

The spectre of inflation has returned to haunt India. It is not even six months since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government returned to power but its inability to control food prices is arguably its single biggest failure till now. The inflation rate will eventually come down sometime in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future and the government will surely take credit for bringing prices down as and when that happens. But...

Concern over the domestic economy should not result in barriers on free trade, according to Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia. While the country would benefit from opening itself up further to international competition, he promised that the interests of farmers and labour-intensive industries would be protected. In a discussion with journalists from The Hindu group on Wednesday, Mr. Scindia defended the Free Trade Agreement (FTA)...

The stalled Land Acquisition Bill should be completely overhauled. In both China and India the issue of land acquisition has become politically very sensitive. In China by official reports more than 66 million farmers have been dislocated in recent years for various commercial development projects. Local officials in cahoots with local business have been rather cavalier in this matter, and this has inflamed passions in the countryside. In India the...

There has been an animated debate in the past three years over the supply of food in the ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) programme. Supplementary nutrition has been provided to all children under the age of six since the inception of the programme more than three decades ago. This was done with the recognition that the nutrition gap (between what children should be consuming every day and what they actually...