-The Financial Express A half-dozen years ago, I participated in a conference on water resource challenges in India. I remember Upmanu Lall, professor at Columbia University, graphically and bluntly making the point that Punjab’s water table was not far from collapse. This has been known for years, and there have been feeble efforts to deal with the problem, but they have been far short of what is needed. My own understanding...
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Is India faced with a 3.1 lakh crore farm-loan waiver? And will it help?
-IANS As demands for farm-loan waivers grow across Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka -- after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra wrote off loans worth Rs 36,359 crore and Rs 30,000 crore, respectively -- India faces a cumulative loan waiver of Rs 3.1 lakh crore, or 2.6 per cent of its GDP in 2016-17. A waiver of this scale could pay for the 2017 rural roads budget 16 times over...
More »GST Is Proving to Be a Procedural Nightmare for Small Service Providers and Traders -MK Venu
-TheWire.in Most of the outreach efforts of the finance ministry to explain and create awareness about the GST have been with the bigger industry players. It is becoming increasingly clear that that neither the Centre nor states are adequately prepared to launch the goods and services tax (GST) on July 1. The sheer multiplicity of taxes, as also different tax slabs for the same commodity or service, is a problem which has...
More »Shrinking banks putting Delhi at risk of flooding -Jayashree Nandi & Risha Chitlangia
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In 2015, a high-powered panel appointed by the National Green Tribunal and headed by the then union water resources secretary Shashi Shekhar had recommended the ecological development of the Yamuna floodplain in such a manner as to prevent any further encroachments by builders. But with NGT yet to decide on implementing that report, constructions continue on either side of the river. NGT also asked for the...
More »Government targets 146 districts to accelerate India's population control drive -Sushmi Dey
-The Times of India NEW DELHI:To achieve the country's population control target faster, the government has decided to accelerate family planning measures by identifying 146 districts where the total fertility rate (TFR, the number of children born per woman) is more than three and which add up to 28% of the population. The health ministry is set to roll out "Mission Parivar Vikas" in these districts to improve access to family planning...
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