Yesterday was the last day of the Auto Expo 2012 in New Delhi. It should have been the first day of ending our obsession with cars and instead, realise what this fascination is doing to our insides.  Over a decade ago, Delhi was a heroic city. It had successfully reduced air pollution by shifting buses and three-wheelers from diesel to CNG. But now, Delhi's residents are choking again. Recently, this paper...

Mother Dairy’s retail model helps farmers but is under pressure from chains Call it the Safal model. For close to 25 years, a large chunk of households in the National Capital Region have had access to fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices—at rates much lower than what the local vegetable and fruits market or the handcart vendor would charge. This was made possible by standing the concept of buying on...

-The Telegraph   Jharkhand’s flagship maternal and child health scheme has attracted the Centre’s attention and may now be replicated in other states. Mamata Vahan was launched in July 2010 by the state wing of the National Rural Health Mission as a free referral transport service to ferry expectant mothers to hospitals, aimed at encouraging institutionalised deliveries to reduce mother and child mortality. Launched as a pilot project in Ranchi — across Mandar,...

Global experience in retail trading by MNCs does not tally with the presumptions on which the UPA government's FDI policy is based. IN the course of the debate on the need to permit foreign direct investment in retail in India, two arguments have been advanced often. The first argument is that large organised retail is good for not just consumers, who would benefit from lower prices owing to cost efficiencies...

Indian traders reject FDI in multi-brand retail and emphasise the need for a policy to regulate the labour-intensive sector. TRADERS across the country responded angrily to the Union Cabinet's decision to allow 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail trade, disproving the arguments of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the assessment of corporate India, which had tried hard to make it appear that traders and...