-The Hindu India must convert its young population to a competitive advantage, and nutrition and health are foundational to that outcome. The “Global Nutrition Report 2016” once again demonstrates India’s slow overall progress in addressing chronic malnutrition, manifest in stunting (low weight for age), wasting (low weight for height), micronutrient deficiencies and over-weight. Our track record in reducing the proportion of undernourished children over the past decade has been modest at best,...

-Frontline The inability to resolve pressing problems with respect to the production, distribution and availability of food is one of the important failures of the entire economic reform process. IN the fateful month of July 1991, when the devaluation of the Indian rupee presaged the introduction of a whole series of liberalising economic reforms, agriculture was very far from the minds of most policymakers and commentators. The immediate focus was on...

-Business Standard This policy involves providing products and services such as electricity and fertilisers at below-market prices New Delhi: While much of public discourse in India has tended to focus on expanding the current subsidy regime to help the poor, Vijay Joshi, economist at Oxford University, advocates shifting to a universal basic income, replacing all government subsidies with a single cash transfer to all citizens, providing them with a basic income guarantee. At...

-Hindustan Times It is almost a year since the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), or the Skill India mission, with the aim of giving as many as 2.4 million young Indians industry-relevant training with an elaborate certification scheme. One year is too short a time to assess true progress in a bureaucracy-driven system of the kind India has, but, given the NDA’s earnestness to create jobs by...

-The Financial Express Persistence of high food inflation can harden the monetary policy stance and make fiscal choices difficult Food inflation increased to 7.9% in May 2016 as against 4.23% in April. This sudden spurt in food inflation is attributed to vegetable prices, followed by pulses and sugar. Is this a short-term spike or will it be a persistent one? If it is going to be a persistent one with pass-through effects,...