Laissez Faire
Government sits back, carmakers make hay No one knows where to place the ultra-low-cost cars in the overall paradigm shift in technology in India. Small cars and downsizing have begun to find
Search Results
-
-
Who benefits?
Plans have to include all people Mukund Gauns who owns about 4 ha of land in Caranzalem in Taleigao, used to grow paddy. "I grow vegetables now, I cannot cultivate paddy anymore because there
-
Trading charges
MCI is the body that is supposed to monitor and enforce standards of medical education in both the private and state sector. <font class="UCASE">mci, </font> a statutory body <font class="UCASE"> </font> under the <font class="UCASE">m</font>o<font class="UCASE">hfw</font> , was established under the provisions of the Indian Medical Council (<font class="UCASE">imc</font>) Act, 1933.<br>
-
Breathing in WTO's world
If EURO II norms are not applied to the entire country by 2000, India may become the world s biggest dumpyard of obsolete, polluting technology
-
SIAM's small step forward
Strict environmental standards will prevent air pollution and safeguard the auto industry s interests
-
Afforestation
In its search for a strategy for afforestation, a laudable goal in itself, the Madhya Pradesh mp government has once again put its foot in its mouth and buckled down unduly to commercial lobbies.
-
Brave attempt at a health policy
At the end of day, the biggest <br>problem is the lack of public pressure.<br>Indian people think very little about<br> their health till they fall ill <br>
-
Making them responsible
Public awareness, clear thinking and practical demands will help us monitor the government and fight for the changes that are needed
-
Perils of incompetence
We are today dealing with politician who are not just corrupt but also incompetent and the latter is a far more serious problem
-
Living on the edge
They say the eye of the storm is calm. This is what I found when I visited the epicentre of war tensions in India, the city of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. This was a week when foreigners were
-
2005: after non-governance
Last fortnight, I wrote about my visit to a governance graveyard called the Union ministry of environment and forests. I also promised to pen a few more thoughts on the subject. Given that the
-
Good growth needs better regulation
It is said everyone, from the Prime Minister downwards, is concerned with the process of environmental clearances: the process takes too much time, it is cumbersome and impedes the breakneck speed of
-
Talk technology, not subsidies, to benefit the poor
The C Rangarajan committee to review prices of petroleum products says that the government should increase the price of liquefied petroleum gas lpg
-
Narmada, Bhopal are issues of democracy, fair deals
Over the past few days, Jantar Mantar has been the venue of two protests against two of worst tragedies Independent India has witnessed. On one side of the road were activists
-
Efficiency versus democracy
Industrialist Ratan Tata has reportedly written to the prime minister cribbing about delays in implementing big buck projects. In his capacity as the chair of the government s investment commission
-
Getting It Right
Loan waiver for farmers is a good beginning M K Venu A former bureaucrat who had worked with finance minister P Chidambaram in 1997 summed up the 2008-09 Budget aptly in the words of Edmund Burke: "Mere parsimony is not economy. Expenses and great expenses may be an essential part in true economy'. The bureaucrat in question, former revenue secretary N K Singh, had then designed one of the most liberal tax amnesty schemes for the urban rich with a view to mainstreaming sources of black money generation. The amnesty programme had later prompted even the Supreme Court to comment that such schemes must not become regular practice. Those were difficult times when a prolonged growth slump in much of Asia had led to sluggish revenue collections year after year. Budget targets were rarely met, if at all. Consequently, the government had to resort to amnesty schemes, in desperation, to collect more revenues. Things have dramatically changed in recent years. Asia is fast becoming the engine of growth, and India is a big part of the story. The government's revenues have soared from about Rs 2,54,000 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 5,85,000 crore in 2007-08, more than doubling in four years. With its coffers overflowing, the UPA government has chosen to embark on a "great expenses' programme. And why not? If you could give amnesty to the rich in difficult times, why not amnesty to the poor, distressed farmers when the coffers are full up? The Rs 60,000 crore farm loan waiver may have some design flaws, but no one today should quarrel with the sentiment that agriculture, and the small farmer, do need a leg-up. Clearly, the distress in the farm sector in recent years has created an adverse political climate for the UPA, which has been a bit shy of selling more aggressively the unprecedented GDP growth India has seen in the past five years. It is obvious that you cannot sell high GDP growth and bulging forex reserves in large parts of rural India which are in distress. This had also become a cause of persistent friction between the Congress and the Left within the UPA alliance. All this while, it would appear, it is this political tension which had resulted in the growing communication gap between the Congress and the Left. This may have had its spillover effect even on the nuclear deal. The Left would seem to have been somewhat assuaged by the Budget proposals. The CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has for the first time welcomed the farm and social sector programmes announced by the finance minister. This may signal a temporary thaw in the relations between the Congress and CPM. There is talk that the nuclear deal may also get revived, and the Left may not do any more than make some routine noises over it. The larger issue is one of creating a conducive atmosphere in the political economy to build a consensus for further reforms that are critical for India's economy to sustain a 9 per cent growth for the next five years. The massive farm loan waiver and higher spending in social sector programmes must be appropriately used now to bring down the political opposition to further reforms which are important to propel India to the next level in the globalisation sweepstakes. The Budget in some ways has signalled a New Deal, in which every section of society has benefited, whether it's the urban middle class or the rural poor. But these benefits must now be accompanied with some obligation to work towards a common goal. The one common objective, with which the CPM must have no quarrel, is promoting higher levels of industrialisation. The CPM has also formally recorded in its party document that rapid industrialisation is necessary and there is an urgent need to move people from low yield agriculture to industry. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too has been placing repeated emphasis on this. The only caution that needs to be exercised is this process must be conducted in a democratic, bottom-up fashion. This was the prime lesson of Nandigram and Singur. The farm loan waiver must be seen as a purely temporary relief and there must be some programme by which farm families locked in low-yielding, suboptimal farm activity are moved to non-farm sectors. After one loan waiver, there is no point in their getting into another loan to do unremunerative agriculture. This would be a recipe for future fiscal disasters. Some permanent institutional arrangement must be designed by the Centre and states together to ensure that inherently remunerative farm activity gets a boost with technical, marketing and financial support. The other farm families must be encouraged through new skill development programmes to move to the manufacturing sector. This needs to be done in a focused manner. The Left Front government in West Bengal has designed an elaborate scheme, after the farmer protests in Nandigram, which seeks to handhold farm families for years after their shift to manufacturing townships built on their land. If done democratically, this is the only way to design a long-term solution to the problems of India's farm sector. A rapidly globalising economy just cannot afford 60 per cent of its population in agriculture sharing less than 20 per cent of the national income. This will remain the biggest point of tension in our political economy. The massive farm loan waiver in the Budget only addresses the symptom. Much more needs to be done to address the root cause. The Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver, at least, brings the whole issue to the centre stage. That is clearly a plus.
-
The parallels between EU financial crisis and carbon market collapse
<p><em>Extreme caution needs to be taken while mulling of linking different carbon markets</em></p> <p>Ever since the green shoots of carbon markets sprung up in countries outside the European Union (EU),
-
A native renaissance
Indigenous peoples of the world have been objects of downright apathy and brutal repression at worst, and mild tourist or academic interest at best for years. Today, they are fighting to overcome the shadows that dog their collective existence. And the wo
-
Is India's Environment Safe?
<div><span>Shri Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of State for Environment & Forests should indeed be complimented for reviewing the clearances given for Vedanta (Bauxite Mining), POSCO (Steel Plant) and a few other projects. I welcome these decisions. They have certainly set a new trend in environment governance in the country. </span></div> <div> </div>
-
Clear concepts, unclear courses
THE National Front (NF)the opposition alliance (between the JanataDal (it)) and some regional parties)led by V P Singhcame to power atthe Centre in 1989. The JD'S environmental concernsone of themost