There is a new excitement in the air concerning higher education. It has been decided by the powers that be, warmly supported by the academic community, that turning selected colleges into universities will open the gates to a Valhalla of knowledge. A commission entrusted with the qualitative improvement of higher education has recommended that on top of some 350 universities and/or equivalent institutions, another 1,500 will be created by upgrading...

It is well known that Amartya Sen is the greatest economist that India has ever produced. His credentials were well established even before he got the Nobel Prize. With his latest book — The Idea of Justice — he has also established himself as a world-class moral philosopher who could come up with great abstractions and generalisations that no other Indian thinker could achieve earlier. The Indian academia, so far, has...

  KEY TRENDS   • The report entitled Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana: An Assessment from the Centre for Science and Environment (released on 21 July, 2017) finds that PMBY is not beneficial for farmers in vulnerable regions. For farmers in vulnerable regions such as Bundelkhand and Marathwada, factors like low indemnity levels, low threshold yields, low sum insured and default on loans make PMFBY a poor scheme to safeguard against extreme weather events. CSE's...

KEY TRENDS   • During 2014-15, while procurement of foodgrains (rice and wheat) increased from 56.9 million tonnes to 60.2 million tonnes, offtake of foodgrains (rice and wheat) from the PDS decreased from 59.8 million tonnes to 55.9 million tonnes. Despite increased availability in the PDS and prevalence of high inflation in foodgrains, dependence on the PDS is reducing, suggesting that there may be issues of availability, timely availability and quality of the PDS foodgrains...