False and acrimonious debates such as Modi versus Manmohan might allow for victories that are political and partisan. But the real loser is the nation, India and Bharat, notes Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor to the Modi government in its first term.
Economist Abhijit Sen, a former Planning Commission member and one of the country's foremost experts on rural economy, died on Monday night. He was 72.
'Today, let us reaffirm our commitment to strive to realise Gandhiji's dreams. His watchwords, truth and nonviolence, will continue to remain relevant for the whole world. He also taught us that rights and duties are but the two sides of the coin - indeed, the true source of rights is duty. Today we recall his lessons in compassion too - compassion not only for our human neighbours but also for our other neighbours, namely, flora and fauna, rivers and mountains.'
Around 7.4 per cent of Indians aged 60 and above are affected by dementia. This number is expected to rise from the current 8.8 million to 17 million by 2036, marking a 97 per cent increase.
The government's food subsidy in the ongoing fiscal year is expected to be a little less than Rs 4 trillion.
The government has no plans to import wheat as it has sufficient stocks to meet the country's requirements, official sources said. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has enough stock for public distribution, they added. "There are no plans to import wheat into India. "The country has sufficient stocks to meet our domestic requirements," a source said.
The Centre has appointed senior IAS officers Vumlunmang Vualnam and Neeraj Mittal as new secretaries in the ministry of civil aviation and the department of telecommunications respectively in a major secretary-level bureaucratic reshuffle, a government order stated.
In yet another blow for Nestle India, live larvae and worms have been found in their milk powder in Coimbatore.
With production hitting a three-year low of 14.7 million tonnes in this sugar season (October to September), the government is also expected to double the levy quota for the PDS from 10 to 20 per cent to tide over shortages. The levy price and quota act as a notional benchmark for open market sugar prices, which have doubled to Rs 34 to Rs 35 a kg since last September, owing to a global shortage. The price of levy sugar is half that of the open market price.
Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said whenever BJP came to power, prices of essential commodities saw a fall.
Is it a case of poor targeting of a welfare scheme, or is it a reflection of the government's desire to expand the scope of this benefit to secure greater electoral dividends? asks A K Bhattacharya.
Varanasi, Detroit, and Venice have been selected to host a global initiative aimed at creating sustainable transportation solutions for cities as part of the 'Toyota Mobility Foundation's Sustainable Cities Challenge'. The initiative is a $9 million programme that will see these cities collaborate with innovators to develop and implement new mobility solutions. The cities, located in the US, India, and Italy, were chosen from a shortlist of 10 cities announced in November 2023.
Many individual states experienced higher inflation than the all-India figures during the financial year 2023-24 (FY24). Retail inflation figures in Telangana, Haryana, Rajasthan and Dadra and Nagar Haveli have been higher than national numbers every month of this financial year, shows a Business Standard analysis of state-wise figures, after the March inflation data was released on Friday. Experts noted that persistent high food inflation along with differences in the weights of rural and urban indices plays into the regional variation in inflation rates.
Paswan, one of India's most prominent Dalit leaders and eight-time Lok Sabha MP died on Thursday at the age of 74.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday termed Food Security Bill a "historic legislation" and asked party leaders to publicise its importance to masses as they gear up for elections scheduled early next year.
The first Global Agro-Industries Forum will be organised in New Delhi from 8 to 11 April 2008.
Till such time that a new governance framework comes into being, the progress of reforms in health, education, land, labour, electricity and agriculture could remain fraught with problems, agitations and delays, observes A K Bhattacharya.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Monday described the United Progressive Alliance's ambitious Food Security Bill as nothing but a 'vote security bill'.
'Our factories are world-class and are becoming increasingly attractive for our global business leaders to use to serve other markets.'
'It has been an ongoing process, talking to the relevant ministries about eliminating leakages and curbing non-core expenditure in various schemes.'
A study by eminent economists, by Jean Drze, Reetika Khera and Meghana Mungikar released few days back shows that more than 100 million people are excluded from the PDS because the central government insists on using 2011 population figures to calculate state-wise coverage under the National Food Security Act.
Whether it was the MGNREGS or the NFSA or the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for cash transfer, the Modi government has built on the basic architecture created by the Singh government. Policy makers in the Modi government, instead of discarding them as products of the previous political regime, worked on them, expanded their scope and reach, and used new tools to improve their performance, explains A K Bhattacharya.
The central government is likely to further consolidate its fiscal deficit by 50 basis points (bps) to 5.9 per cent in FY24 from 6.4 per cent in FY23, according to a recent report released by Goldman Sachs on Tuesday. In the current fiscal year, there is going to be an upside of 0.5 per cent on the receipts side due to higher nominal GDP growth, and higher tax buoyancy because of the formalisation, the report said. The upside to expenditure is mainly going to come from incremental subsidies (0.8 per cent of GDP), in both food and fertilizer, it said. The upcoming pre-election Budget will carry forward the trend of the increased capital expenditure seen in recent years.
The government has an opportunity right now to save Indians from deep recession, and in many cases, starvation, notes Kalyan Singhal.
Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Thursday said the economy is expected to grow at 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal notwithstanding deficient rains in August. India recorded economic growth of 7.8 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2023-24 against 13.1 per cent in the year-ago period. India's economy in Q1 grew at the fastest pace in a year, on the shoulders of a boost in capital expenditure both at central and state levels, along with stronger consumption demand, especially in rural areas, and improved performance in the services sector, he said.
The Chhattisgarh government has decided to set up model fair-price shops (FPS) in each district and encourage owners to act as banking correspondents for providing financial services. The state has around 12,300 fair-price shops across 33 districts. The state government is, however, encouraging FPS owners to provide a host of services besides acting as a banking correspondent.
Ushering in the biggest programme in the world to fight hunger, Parliament on Monday gave its nod to the landmark Food Security Bill which seeks to provide highly subsidised foodgrains to the country's two-third population as a right.
A bench of Justices MR Shah and Hima Kohli directed the Centre to submit a fresh chart with the number of migrant and unorganised sector workers registered on eShram portal.
'They are fighting it out, but they have deeply traumatised; they are alive and they are carrying on in life.'
The protesting farmers celebrated Holi at the borders and maintained that their agitation will continue till the farm laws are repealed and a separate law on minimum support price is enacted, it said in a statement.
While the motives of the Bill are of course laudable, there is every likelihood that the consequences of its passage will be dire.
Justifying the United Progressive Aliance government's decision to bring the food security bill through an ordinance, Union Food Minister K V Thomas on Thursday said the Centre is confident that it will be ratified in the monsoon session of Parliament commencing on August 5.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah after a Cabinet meeting here on Wednesday said that the government has decided to go for open market tender to procure rice, whose process will start from Thursday.
Nowhere on the planet, nowhere in mankind's history has such an idea taken the concrete shape in form of a law. The National Food Security Bill, which will come via ordinance and not after the debate in Parliament, is an incredible economic tool to tackle the hunger of poor Indians. Also, it has already been condemned widely as a political gimmick.
The Manmohan Singh government's rush to pass the Food Security Bill reflects extreme paucity of logic and action, says Neeta Kolhatkar
Adani Group on Wednesday said it will invest over Rs 12,400 crore in an array of projects including a data centre, clean energy project, and a cement plant in Telangana. The group signed four memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for the investments at the World Economic Forum in Davos in presence of Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani. The conglomerate's flagship firm Adani Enterprises will invest Rs 5,000 crore in setting up a 100 MW data centre that will use green energy while its renewable energy unit Adani Green Energy Ltd will spend an equivalent amount in setting up two pump storage projects.
'The prime minister did not think that COVID-19 was a serious challenge as late as March 20.'
India's monstrous public distribution system ensured that the government, and not private players, became a huge hoarder of food grains.
Regulator's nod assumed more importance after the Maggi issue.
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