-Business Standard Allows farmers to sell produce directly to retail chains, bulk buyers for 3 months Mumbai: A series of central government notifications and letters to states in the past two days will enable agri and food products to reach consumers in a timely and efficient manner. The measures include limiting jurisdiction of APMCs (Agricultural Produce Market Committees) to their physical premises, allowing big retailers and even commodity processors to buy directly from...

-The Hindu Public private partnership (PPP) is the only way out, Ministry tells parliamentary panel New Delhi: Even with an annual capital expenditure of about ?1.6 lakh crore for the Railways — which is the highest-ever — it will take decades to complete the sanctioned projects, the Ministry of Railways told a parliamentary panel on Monday, adding that public private partnership (PPP) is the only way out. The Ministry told the Standing Committee...

-The Hindu The agenda to set up a development bank is a welcome initiative, but questions remain on its design Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s press conference on August 23, announcing a slew of measures to boost the economy and financial market sentiments, had an interesting idea. It was about setting up a development bank. Ms. Sitharaman said: “In order to improve access to long-term finance, it is proposed to establish an organisation to...

-Hindustan Times It threatens individual sovereignty, undermines citizen rights, and is a lost chance to meaningfully grapple with data colonisation Data is a sovereign asset,” said the Union minister of Railways and commerce, Piyush Goyal, at the G20 meeting in Japan. Goyal was against using free trade agreements to justify the free flow of data. Instead, he said, government restrictions on data flows would allow India to be able to use “personal,...

-Scroll.in Democracy requires a national character that isn’t grounded in ignorance and government policy that is not a sophisticated version of Whatsapp. It is now clear – 1,020 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi told India he was wiping out 85% of its currency, by value – that demonetisation was not just a failure but a spectacularly misconceived move. That its destructive effects took at least 100 lives in its immediate aftermath,...