-The Indian Express A headlong rush into PPPs will only leave a trail of disputes, renegotiations, corruption. The conventional wisdom in India on public-private partnerships (PPPs) is that they help governments raise capital to meet large infrastructure investment targets. But this rationale for promoting PPPs does not stand on strong foundations. There are three potential reasons for supporting PPPs. First, they enable governments to access more capital without visibly breaching fiscal targets. In...

-The Hindu The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, by granting approval to GM trials even before the Supreme Court ruled in the matter, has shown an undue haste Union Minister of Environment , Forests and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar, was petitioned by farmers and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch to halt trials of transgenic crops approved by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) on July 18 and there is some confusion if the...

-Live Mint BJP says bringing parties under RTI Act would hamper smooth functioning of parties, information could be misused by opponents New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Thursday said bringing political parties under the Right to Information (RTI) Act would hamper the smooth functioning of parties and the information could be misused by opponents, in a departure from BJP's earlier stance. The ruling party's U-turn,...

-The Business Standard States need to create alternative marketing structures for farm produce since middlemen also provide vital services that are otherwise unavailable to the farmer   One of the issues often raised in the context of high food inflation is the pressing need to change the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC), the marketing boards established by state governments. The earlier United Progressive Alliance government had asked the Congress-ruled states to remove fruit...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In its first step towards restructuring MGNREGA, the government on Wednesday announced that the material-labour expenditure ratio in the scheme would be changed from 60:40% to 49:51%. This is in keeping with government's focus on asset creation along with job opportunities in the scheme. The government is also planning to monitor the work under the scheme through the use of space technology and provide wages...