Land in India is problematic largely because of archaic and perverse provisions in the practice and the law. The new Land Acquisition Amendment Bill does go some way to correct the anti-democratic and imperial provisions of the old 1894 Act. Other regulatory restraints stand in the way of fair...

Container movement by rail was a monopoly of Indian Railways (IR) until recently and its subsidiary, Container Corporation (CONCOR) was the sole operator of container trains. Entry of other entities in 2007 has been driven by larger public policy concerns. In the process, issues such as...

Gujarat has attracted more foreign direct investment (FDI) than what its GDP size alone would suggest. But relative to its peer states (especially Tamilnadu, Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka, and possibly Andhra Pradesh) it has fallen short significantly. The above findings which we made in an...

Multilateral agencies and economists with much influence have been urging laissez-faire in agriculture. While success with the rich countries has been minimal despite the commitments under the WTO, many poor countries with much agricultural potential in the long run have been coaxed to adopt...

More than political constraints, an adherence to orthodoxy on the part of policy makers may have been responsible for the economy operating at well below the growth rate that it is capable of achieving. Part of the problem is orthodoxy’s (limited) understanding of the East Asian trade...

This note argues that the GEB needs to be restructured urgently. The principal challenge is really to overcome that major ‘agency problem’ that results in leakage of enormous revenue. Plugging the leakages alone would make the GEB profitable at current average tariffs! The key elements of...

These comments on the Draft Bill 2001, had been widely circulated in September 2001. Discussions on the Bill have again revived in the media and elsewhere, as the reform of the power sector has made little headway, and there is much concern that something needs to be done. Little progress or...

Both India and China began to reform in the early eighties, with the Indian reforms being very slow until 1991-92 after which they "take-off". While there are many differences the crucial difference is that China adopted the same export led growth (ELG) policies of the successful East Asian...

Briefly the proposal is for market competition in generation, through the development of a hybrid wholesale and retail (for bulk consumers alone) market. It is not a marker for all the electricity in the system, but largely a market that would allow distribution-cum-generation companies to...