Op-Eds

NCAER is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Mridul Saggar as the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPF) Chair Professor at NCAER. He joins the Chair today. The Chair has been established with the support of the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in the Government of...   Read More

In her February 1 2022 budget speech Nirmala Sitharaman announced GoI's commitment to issuing a digital rupee. The relevant text ran three sentences in its entirety. 'Introduction of [a] central bank digital currency (CBDC) will give a big boost to digital economy. Digital currency will also lead to a more efficient and cheaper currency management...   Read More

Performance index based on 11 parameters shows ports in the east and south are lagging  India has been making concerted efforts to expand its merchandise exports footprint. And rightly so as exports act as an engine of growth. The objectives of production linked incentive (PLI) schemes or of India becoming a part of the global value...   Read More

Transport connectivity between India’s N-E and the eastern neighbourhood can improve. But trade gains per se seem limited. After a gap of four years the BIMSTEC (comprising Bangladesh Bhutan India Mynamar Nepal Sri Lanka and Thailand) summit was held virtually in last week of March to deliberate on the prospects and way forward of this...   Read More

Claims and counter-claims have characterized the debate about the scenario of employment and unemployment in the country. Both Government and private agencies shell out various shades of data and information to prove a point. Going by the official data set it is seen that Government collects and collate employment data using various methodologies one of...   Read More

Several changes may have taken place in the lives of Indian women but gendered realities continue to reflect in their status in a family every day. The iconic utterance by French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr more than 150 years ago “The more things change the more they remain the same” accurately sums up the current...   Read More

Hybrid trolley buses and trams are a way out Calcutta’s mayor Firhad Hakim announced that reducing the city’s pollution would be a priority. A significant volume of Calcutta’s pollution emanates from the transportation sector. With India setting its net-zero emission target for 2070 Calcutta’s transportation needs to be geared towards that goal. Calcutta ranks sixth...   Read More

It is time for us to focus on empowering all women including Muslim women by ensuring their access to education employment and public safety. After two years of living behind a mask and trying to decode muffled voices and hidden expressions one begins to develop empathy for millions of women hidden behind face coverings. Whether...   Read More

A marginal re-allocation of expenditure away from income support towards more productivity and employment enhancement schemes could have been adopted The agriculture and allied sector is going through a slow but dynamic change. Does Union Budget 2022-23 anchor the sector into its more dynamic growth path? The answer lies in the details. The real growth...   Read More

Opinion: Sanjib Pohit Anupma Mehta Samarth Gupta and Soumi Roy Chowdhury  The latest data on alcohol consumption in India is bound to cause a mental hangover unless the seriousness of the addiction at the national level is viewed with a clear rather than a befuddled mind. A report released in 2019 by the Ministry of Social...   Read More