Consider this. Every time petrol prices rise, oil companies end up losing more money. How? The price differential between petrol and diesel increases further; people start buying diesel-powered vehicles so oil firms bleed more. Even worse, we all bleed because dieselisation adds to toxic pollution in our cities. This, in turn, adds to the health burden and costs. This is all very well accepted. Yet, nobody has done anything to fix...

-The Economic Times   The Reserve Bank today expressed concern over asset quality of banks and lower credit flow to rural areas, despite the fact that performance of Indian banks improved during the 2010-11 period.  In its report titled 'Trend and Progress of Banking in India 2010-2011', RBI said that the Indian banking sector demonstrated continued revival from the peripheral spill over effects of the recent global financial turmoil in 2010-11, but despite...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is under pressure from several quarters. One such source of pressure is the rural rich whose concerns were recently voiced by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, when he raised the bogey of shortage of supply of farm workers because of the employment guarantee scheme. The fact is that the national average for workdays generated under the scheme is less than half of the...

-Live Mint   In an unprecedented move, farmers in East Godavari and adjoining districts of Andhra Pradesh declared a crop holiday last season, refusing to cultivate paddy in this fully irrigated region of the state. Farmers say the reason for this drastic step is that cultivating paddy has become unremunerative and they are left with no other choice. The agrarian crisis and its neglect by successive governments are responsible for the low...

-PTI   Admitting that the government is neglecting research in the farm sector, the agriculture ministry has sought more funds in the next Five Year Plan (2012-2017) for significant jump in foodgrain production. "I think, we are neglecting Agricultural science. The amount of importance that we should be giving, we are not giving, though we have very good scientists," Basu said at an international agri-conference here. "We are decades behind in agriculture science as...