-The Economic Times A couple of months ago, the UPA government cleared Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail. It is a politically risky step. But for once, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh showed both spine and spunk biting the bullet. Since then, both Left parties and the BJP have expressed serious reservations over the decision. The general view is that it will affect the lakhs of small, indigenous kirana stores spread across...

-Tehelka Here are the gaping holes in the argument for FDI in retail. No smooth talk can pave over it TOUTED AS a cure-all for India’s economic ills, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail is at best an anodyne, and at worst, toxic. It is an attempt to lift markets by fabricating sentiment; signalling an economic turnaround without any concrete steps being taken to trim the fiscal deficit or boost manufacturing. All...

-The Times of India The income tax department's '360 degree profiling' had resulted in former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia's contacts with several bigwigs coming to light. She may have fallen off the radar but the government plans to strengthen the mechanism with finance minister P Chidambaram initiating a pilot project with the FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit) to integrate data on all suspicious transactions with the '360 degree' database. Financial transactions of hundreds...

-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...

-The Hindu The direct cash transfer scheme launched a year ago in Kotkasim for providing kerosene subsidies has pushed legitimate beneficiaries out of the system The nondescript town of Kotkasim in the Alwar district of Rajasthan had its Peepli Live moment after it was chosen for a pilot experiment with “direct cash transfers” of kerosene subsidies. According to the district administration, the scheme led to net savings of 79 per cent in...