-Livemint.com India’s new industrial policy is an opportunity to address the problems of low R&D spending and tough competition from cheap Chinese imports The framing of the new industrial policy should be seen as an opportunity to chart a meaningful path for industry’s role in India’s development. The recently released discussion paper by the department of industrial policy and promotion mentions two points that need to be examined closely to grasp the...

-Hindustan Times India’s economic growth slumped to 5.7% in April-June quarter, which experts attribute to demonetisation that sucked out 86% of the currency in circulation from a largely cash-reliant economy. The government’s expected measures to revive a stuttering economy could mainly target the MSME sector and involve a re-look at public-private project norms to boost investment without breaching its fiscal deficit target for the year, officials involved in the process told HT. Besides,...

-Deccan Herald As a railway buff, I love the technology story of the bullet train. However, it is not appropriate for India, in the current configuration as negotiated by Prime Minister Narendra and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail line, for which they laid the foundation stone on September 14. The Shinkansen bullet trains were introduced in Japan in 1964 and traversed the 500-plus kilometre distance between Tokyo...

-Livemint.com 44% of derailments between 2012-13 and 2016-17 were due to failure of tracks, fittings There have been nine incidents of train derailments in the past one month. The spate of accidents has increased anxiety among passengers and also generated a lot of political heat. What are the concrete facts though? Have train derailments been increasing? What is causing these accidents? Is it sabotage, human error or dilapidated infrastructure? A NITI Aayog discussion...

-Hindustan Times After Tamil Nadu’s pioneering Amma canteens, many states have started community kitchens, such as Karnataka’s Indira Canteens. This is a welcome development. The first coverage of the recently inaugurated “Indira canteens” in Karnataka that I noticed were two reports on television channels. Both were poking fun (justifiably) at Rahul Gandhi’s goofy speech at the launch. Sadly though, neither commented on the rationale or importance of the Karnataka government’s initiative. This...