-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Sulphur dioxide (SO2), a significant contributor to air pollution, may be within the national ambient air quality standard in all major cities in India, but the country is the largest cumulative emitter of this pollutant in the world and thus prone to being a victim of a cocktail of several toxic air pollutants. As a reactive pollutant, SO2 reacts with other air pollutants to form sulphate...

-The Hindu With growing environmental distress, policymakers cannot shy away from adopting best eco-management practices In a report last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) called the Chennai floods of 2015 a “man made disaster”, a pointer to how the encroachment of lakes and river floodplains has driven India’s sixth largest city to this ineluctable situation. The Chennai floods are a symbol of consistent human failings and poor urban...

-Livemint.com * Contrary to popular belief, the Economic Survey 2019 says “dwarfs”—over 10-year-old firms with less than 100 employees—which account for a majority of firms in organized manufacturing, hold back job creation and productivity * Mint explains why it is so and the way out How do small and young firms fare in terms of job creation? The Economic Survey says the contribution of small firms to output and employment in the manufacturing sector...

-Business Standard Till the time you don’t give water to a farmer’s fields, you can’t save him from suicide. Intervening in a debate in the state Assembly on July 21, 2015, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra remarked that the state has 40 per cent of the country’s large dams, “but 82 per cent area of the state is rainfed. Till the time you don’t give water to a farmer’s fields, you can’t...

-The Hindu Business Line Eminent agriculture scientist MS Swaminathan, Chairman of the much discussed Farmers’ Commission whose report mooted an MSP at 50 per cent above cost, feels that income support can be given in the form of free inputs or higher procurement as well. While welcoming ‘PM-Kisan’, he says cash transfer should not become a form of patronage and that the focus should shift from loan write-offs to long-term policies....