This report summarizes the findings of a review aimed at understanding emerging approaches to energy subsidy reform, discerning trends, and identifying major strands of thinking and research in the field, as reflected in major policy and academic journals relevant to the subject. The review was initiated in early 2020 as …
Even in remote villages, you can find shops providing tea and cigarettes/biris to the satisfaction of local consumers. But there are no schools, roads or drinking water. Now, we will all agree that schools and roads are more important than tea and cigarettes. Why, then, are lower-priority items well provided …
The sad state of public systems is the result of several, interrelated factors. Scarcity of resources, the most widely cited explanation, is an exaggerated alibi. Of course, the resources mobilised by the State are inadequate to meet costs of government and development expenditures (including maintenance and improvement of social services …
India has been enduring a tragedy for the past 250 years: government structures incongruous with the essential character of our traditional society, our samaaj, have been imposed on us. And this power of the State has only increased. That's why we see that the government machinery is incapable of delivering …
the World Trade Organization (wto) has approved sanctions against the us for subsidising its domestic industries, using the funds collected as anti-dumping duties. Following the decision, the eu and Japan have now said they will levy us $150 million worth of sanctions from early 2005 if the us subsidies continue. …
the World Trade Organization (wto) set up a special subcommittee on cotton on November 19, 2004, to address the issues concerning cotton trade "ambitiously, expeditiously and specifically'. The step was a compromise for the four West African nations, which had asked for a prompt end to billions of dollars of …
dengue resurfaces: Delhi is once again in the grip of dengue. The disease claimed its first victim at Apollo Hospital on October 5, 2004. Over 180 cases have already been reported in the capital. The disease is also spreading in the neighbouring town of Noida; media reports claimed the occurrence …
Japan has dropped its opposition to curbs on fishing subsidies in the World Trade Organization. Environmental groups say this shift marks a breakthrough in current negotiations on the issue. Japan now acknowledges that fishing subsidies deplete global fish stocks and has set out an approach for tackling them. This is …
The International Conference for Renewable Energies is to be held in Bonn, Germany. But here is a sector dwarfed by fossil fuels, and although governments can proactively root for renewables, and some have, the options given to developing countries are quite limiting. After travelling in Germany and the UK, the …
The collapse of the World Trade Organization's (wto) ministerial meet at Cancun last year was a big shock to the eu. The union had calculated that it would drive home its agenda related to agriculture and the so-called
history will be made on June 18, when the World Trade Organization (wto) is expected to officially declare that the subsidies given by the us to its cotton farmers are illegal. It will be the first time that a developing country
the much-touted North East Industrial Policy (neip) of the Union government badly needs a ‘mid-course correction’. This acknowledgement has come from none other than S Jagdeesan, joint secretary in the Union ministry of commerce and industry, at the Northeast Expo 2004 at Delhi. He made some other revelations. For example, …
WHAT separates Punjab from Nagaland and makes them alike at the same time? Our visionary bureaucracy. Nothing else can explain why the Union government wants to slap a facsimile copy of the fiscal and economic policy pursued in Jammu Kashmir, Punjab and Haryana onto the eight northeast states. The government …
"I am not sure we can survive the European Union(eu),' says Andrzej Konkol, an organic farmer in Kashubia, Northern Poland. His daughter translates while her young twin brothers amble about the yard in the afternoon sun. Grinning broadly, they half lead, half follow the gangling calf they'd watched being born …
The World Social Forum (WSF) concluded in Mumbai. Then began the World Economic Forum in Davos. A little before these, a glitzy automobile fair in Delhi. One after the other, loud and strident images. But even as an intensely stimulating energy of dissent swelled at WSF, I kept feeling the …
Wherever they exist India's urban elite splash on subsidies B Ashok a regime of pro-rich subsidies have ensured India's urban elites happilly benefit from organised water supply and sewage treatment services, wherever they exist. Water tariffs in India are among the lowest. Let us compare. In the us
