Wheat prices surged to a two-year high while shares in European brewers and food producers fell on Friday as markets reacted to the sudden imposition of a ban on grain exports from drought-hit Russia. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin moved decisively on Thursday to halt exports of grain and flour from August 15 to the end of the year and the country’s railroad monopoly said on Friday it will stop loading...
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Centre now fixes 65-35 fund sharing pattern for RTE Act
Putting an end to the months of controversy over fund sharing for the Right to Education Act, the Union government has now fixed a 65-35 sharing pattern. The pattern, which received the in-principal approval of the expenditure finance committee of the ministry of finance, will be applicable for the next five years. With this, states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, both governments that had demanded 100% Central assistance, will have...
More »West Bengal announces subsidies on diesel, power and kerosene
The West Bengal Government on Thursday announced subsidies on diesel for agricultural purposes and on power which will benefit consumers of up to 200 units of electricity monthly. 78 lakhs to benefit While the subsidy on diesel for the agricultural sector will be one rupee per litre, nearly 78 lakh consumers of power across the State will benefit from subsidies that will cost the State Government Rs. 120 crore annually. State Finance Minister...
More »The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai
Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, "I am what I am because of the college". Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: "Why blame the college!" Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating...
More »Half of India’s population lives below the poverty line by Arun Kumar
According to a new Oxford University study, 55 percent of India’s population of 1.1 billion, or 645 million people, are living in poverty. Using a newly-developed index, the study found that about one-third of the world’s poor live in India. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) has been developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as a more precise and comprehensive means of...
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