-The Hindu Devising State-specific industrialisation strategies in coordination with the Centre will improve manufacturing Many think that in the aftermath of the pandemic, several manufacturing companies operating from China will relocate their businesses to other destinations, including India. Many American, Japanese, and South Korean companies based in China have initiated discussions with the Indian government to relocate their plants to India. Companies are expected to exit China due to three primary reasons....

-Hindustan Times Universalise PDS, make it demand-driven; give more funds to states; and ramp up MGNREGS I pen this column with a depressing sense of deja vu. Back in late March as India went into lockdown, I wrote in these pages of the urgent need for the State to change the rules of the game, avoid red tape, improve Centre-state coordination and adapt agile administrative processes as it sought to provide relief...

-The Hindu “While some measures can be taken, several Chinese investments are quite substantive. It is not possible to fully block them. A worrisome factor is that these Chinese companies have linkages of some sort with the Chinese military,” one government official said on condition of anonymity. Despite the uproar against the use of Chinese products amid the standoff on the border in eastern Ladakh and the government’s decision to ban several...

-The Hindu The SOFI report and lockdown distress have renewed focus on what is also the world’s largest food insecure population Data from the latest edition of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report show that India retains the dubious distinction of being the country with the largest population of food insecure people. Estimates presented in the report which was released by several United Nations organisations show...

-The Hindu Business Line FSSAI issues order on 24 items even as it works on regulations for GM foods Come January 1, 2021, importers of 24 major food crops will have to mandatorily declare that the products are not genetically-modified and that they also have a non-GM origin. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has come out with this order to ensure that only non-GM food crops come into the...