-The Hindu The Union government should dispel the States’ fears of centralisation if it wants to rescue the idea from total rejection The idea of a national water framework law mooted by the Central government has run into strong opposition from the Chief Ministers of several States. The aim of this article is to clarify the issues involved for the information of the general public. I am obliged to strike a personal note...
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Understanding FDI in Retail: What Can Economic Principles Teach Us? -Abhirup Sarkar
-Economic and Political Weekly The recent debate on the acceptability of foreign direct investment in the retail sector in India has been mostly political. It is necessary to look into the pros and cons of FDI in retail from a purely economic point of view. This article identifi es the safeguards that should be undertaken before allowing giant multinationals to function in the country. Abhirup Sarkar (abhirup@isical.ac.in) is with the Indian Statistical...
More »Cash Transfers and UID
-Economic and Political Weekly We support cash transfers such as old-age pensions, widow pensions, maternity entitlements and scholarships. However, we oppose the government’s plan for accelerated mass conversion of welfare schemes to Unique Identification Authority (UID)-driven cash transfers. This plan could cause havoc and massive social exclusion. We demand the following: (1) No replacement of food with cash under the public Distribution system (PDS). (2) Immediate enactment of a comprehensive National Food Security...
More »Whiff of scam in soon-to-be-rolled out UPA's game-changer cash transfer scheme -Nitin Sethi
-The Times of India UPA-II's flagship direct cash transfer scheme has run into rough weather following warnings of a potential scam in the making, and evoking concerns of serious delays. Government functionaries have raised the red flag about how cash would be finally disbursed to beneficiaries and whether the National Population Register (NPR) would come into play in some states instead of the Unique Identification (UID) number to identify the end-users. Senior...
More »In UP, cold claims 15 lives in a day, toll touches 55
-The Times of India The cold snap killed 15 more people across Uttar Pradesh on Friday, taking the toll from it across north India this season to at least 55. The fresh deaths were reported as the mercury dipped to just a few degrees above freezing point in most parts of the state. Kanpur was the coldest place in the region with a low of two degree C. Lucknow, with a minimum...
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