-The Hindu In the present state of the economy, when there is excess capacity in manufacturing, adequate stocks of foodgrain and the inflation rate is trending downwards, there is an opportune moment for a public investment-centred fiscal expansion Over the past eight months, the government has issued some strong statements on the economy and taken some bold steps aimed at transforming it. As it prepares to present its first real budget we...

-The Hindu Business Line Radha Mohan Singh, the Union Agriculture Minister, lent vocal support to genetically modified (GM) crops on Friday stating that technologically enhanced seeds could help India realise its food security ambition and believed it held great promise in minimising productivity losses particularly on account of abiotic stress factors like floods and drought. "While agriculture feeds the nation, seeds feed agriculture... Bt Cotton in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and...

-The Hindu Tropical diseases have often been neglected by pharmaceuticals because the size of the drug market is smaller, people have lower incomes and companies are uncertain about IPR January marked an important breakthrough in the fight against tropical diseases. Researchers and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in Delhi found a drug candidate that prevented TB and malaria pathogens from infecting human blood cells. It is not just that...

-SciDev.net   India plans to produce 160,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2022 Financing, land-acquisition and proper policies are among challenges to the plans Government confident of financing by World Bank and multilateral agencies NEW DELHI: Financing, land-acquisition and lack of proper policies are among challenges to India's ambitious renewable energy projects, the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) run by The Energy and...

-The Hindu Measures on urea, LPG, kerosene to go The Modi government is putting on hold its plans for some key economic reforms Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced in his maiden Budget last July. These include decontrol of urea prices, fewer subsidised cylinders a year and withdrawal of kerosene from the public distribution system (PDS). Fertilizer Minister Ananth Kumar told The Hindu that the administered price controls for urea would stay. "We...