Agriculture
PDS and India's food security
IF WE care about true food security, an efficient and effective mechanism to reach food to all people at all times at affordable prices is an essential prerequisite. This is also crucial to alleviate poverty.
Economy
Proposal to initiate economic revival
THE news of financial misadventures has dominated the media in recent months. Though the Government has been trying to revive the economy -- the RBI lending support through interest rate cuts -- there has been no revival of investment intentions in the r
eal sense of the term. No amount of reduction of interest rates can promote enterprise growth unless the real economy shows healthy and vibrant demand for goods.
Vision 2020 -- Why don't bankers have self-confidence?
IN THE US, the Savings and Loan Associations are the equivalent of the chit funds in India. As the UTI did recently, these Associations too collapsed in 1987. As they held over 40 per cent of the nation's deposits, that was quite a calamity indeed. Mr Al
an Greenspan, who had then recently taken over as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, used both fiscal and monetary measures to bring the situation under control.
Editorial
Trade pressures
MR ROBERT ZOELLICK, Trade Representative of the new Republican Government of Mr George Bush, said in a recent interview that he ``lives in a world of practical reality'' and, therefore, does not expect the European Union to state upfront that it would li
ke ``to discuss agriculture and services and nothing else'', adding significantly, ``as prudently as the Indian Government does''. Mr Zoellick is absolutely right. But he must also grant the point that at least New Delhi has been honest enough to place a
ll its cards on the WTO table, which should make negotiations on the issues concerned -- for countries like the US -- far more comfortable than would have been the case otherwise.
Information Technology
20 A.P.C
AUGUST 12, 2001, marks the completion of the 20th year after personal computer's (20 A.P.C.) advent. On that date in 1981, the International Business Machines, famous as IBM and nicknamed the Big Blue (for some peculiar reason), tentatively and diffiden
tly despatched to the sales and distribution centres of Sears and ComputerLand, cartons of contraptions somewhat grandiloquently called personal computers.
Politics
Yet another August 15
ON JULY 31, the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, told a BJP parliamentary party meeting: ``Since I am Prime Minister, I am responsible. I feel I have not been able to manage and discipline the NDA. I have grown old. People also say I am unwell an
d, therefore, I should retire. But rather than wait for people to say I should retire, I have myself decided to step down''. As everyone knows, this decision to resign was altered under pressure from his party and also his troublesome NDA allies with the
result that Mr Vajpayee continues to be at the helm of affairs.
