-The Financial Express Turning agriculture around should be the top priority of government in the new year. India became the world’s fastest-growing economy in 2015. Indian agriculture, however, fared much worse. Agriculture grew only by 0.2% in FY15. Two consecutive years of drought, unseasonal rains in rabi season and falling food prices in global markets have driven farmers to desperation. Turning agriculture around should be the top priority of government in the...
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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 »Delhi can deal with pollution -Kirit Parikh & Jyoti Parikh
-The Indian Express The Aam Aadmi Party’s strategy is a good one for some immediate relief. However, it must initiate action on all the other measures now. Delhi has become the most air polluted city in the world. Urgent and effective actions are needed to bring the pollution level down. The cost to the health of Delhi citizens far exceeds any cost that some may have to bear to reduce it....
More »Nothing free or basic about it -Prabir Purkayastha
-The Hindu We need to provide full Internet at prices people can afford, not privilege private platforms. This is where India’s regulatory system has to step in The airwaves, the newspapers and even the online space are now saturated with a Rs. 100 crore campaign proclaiming that Internet connectivity for the Indian poor is a gift from Facebook which a few churlish net neutrality fundamentalists are opposing. In its campaign, Facebook is...
More »Get smart on diesel cars
-The Hindu The National Green Tribunal’s decision to bar the registration of new and old diesel vehicles in Delhi till its next hearing on January 6 comes as a blow — though a temporary one for now — to passenger vehicle manufacturers. Automobile-makers have, in recent years, been building (from scratch, in a few cases) and scaling up their production capacities for diesel cars, driven by the surge in demand for...
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