-Business Standard Despite two consecutive years of deficient rains, farm growth was positive in Q2 of 2015-16 The India Meteorological Department (IMD) might have decided to drop the use of the word “drought” from its nomenclature, but even if it had not done so, it would have hardly made a difference. Studies show that Indian agriculture has, over the years, developed an inherent resistance to drought. The share of agriculture in the overall...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Trying and testing the car formula -Rukmini S & Samarth Bansal
-The Hindu While the Delhi government’s spirit of experimentation is to be lauded, the right lessons need to be learnt from the odd-even trial. It is now amply clear that no credible data supports the Delhi government’s claim that the odd-even trial has reduced pollution or improved air quality. In fact, the quality of air in the first week of January was worse compared to previous weeks. Data obtained from the National...
More »Widening the net beyond the income norm -Abhishek Jain & Shalu Agrawal
-The Hindu Less than 3 per cent of Indians pay income tax and a significant proportion under-reports taxable income. On December 28, 2015, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas announced the exclusion of high-income households from the LPG subsidy cover. As per the official press release, subsidy would not be available for domestic LPG consumers, if the consumer or his/her spouse had taxable income of more than Rs. 10 lakh for...
More »Pollution falls, for now, largely due to weather in Delhi
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Whether due to odd-even rule or not, air pollution levels in the city have begun to fall. Data released by System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) of the ministry of earth sciences showed PM2.5 concentration on January 9 to be at the lowest level since December 25. It was also lower than the level recorded on the same day in 2015. Please click...
More »Rabi crop fine for now, a few worries over wheat and early end to winter -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express Field reports suggest that the mustard crop — currently about 70-90 days old and at the reproductive (flowering and pod development) stage in most areas — is in good condition. Dry weather combined with unwinter-like temperatures — roughly 5 degrees Celsius above normal levels for this time — may not pose immediate worries to the rabi season crops in the fields now. But the real concern is whether...
More »