The Economic Survey tucks away a little, dirty secret of India’s political economy in a box on power sector reform. The losses of state electricity boards, says the Survey, are now about 1% of GDP, which would translate to about Rs 78,700 crore this year. The government stopped publishing a table on this vital parameter a couple of years ago but the problem has only continued to grow in shade...

The first issue in food security is India’s Hunger index. The Global Hunger Index released by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) places India 67th in rankings with a score of 24.1, far below China and below Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal. According to FAO, about 25% of world’s undernourished live in India. The proposed Food Security Act is seen as the key instrument of intervention to remedy this situation. The...

The debate over food security is becoming an exercise in callow dissimulation, where we devote our energies to ensure that food security remains a mirage. The core objective should be simple. It is a scandal that after two decades of high growth, India still does not make adequate nutrition available to large sections of the population. There is simply no financial, technological or production related reason why this should be...

Maharashtra govt launches a massive crackdown on mafia. Two days after Additional Collector Yashwant Sonawane was killed after he intercepted the adulteration of petroleum products, the Maharashtra government launched a massive crackdown on suspected adulterators in the state. Raids were carried out at over 200 locations across Maharashtra and the police have arrested some 180 people. At the Centre, the government announced measures to prevent the adulteration of auto fuels with cheaper...

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the government to widen the scope of its action on black money beyond the issue of tax evasion, questioning why it had not gone after those who had stashed huge amounts of money abroad or inquired about the source of the siphoned funds. The Centre explained the difficulty in revealing the names of foreign bank account holders who were in the zone of suspicion for...