How green bonds can help achieve 2022 RE targets
By Ashish Nigam In June 2015, the Indian government reaffirmed its support to renewable energy (RE) suppliers by revising the generation capacity to 175 GW by 2022. Of this, 100 GW is slated to come…
Opinion
Why Indias governance frontlines are cash starved
By Charu Bahri Between 2010 and 2015, funding shortfalls to local governments nationwide – rural and urban – were as high as half the sanctioned amount and annual payments fluctuated extensively, with variations peaking in…
Proud that I did ‘Mastram’: Tara Alisha Berry
Mumbai, March 22 (IANS) Actress Tara Alisha Berry, who made her Bollywood debut with the Akhilesh Jaiswal directorial “Mastram”, says she is “proud” that she did the film and she would have regretted had she…
Badruddin Ajmal: King-maker or spoiler in Assam politics?
By Amitava Mukherjee Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is now perhaps ruing his earlier brash comment when, in an apparent mood of disdain and haughtiness, he had asked “Who is Badruddin Ajmal?” The target was…
Gandhi tried his best to save Bhagat Singh’s life
By Praveen Davar The 85th death anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, the revolutionary icon of the freedom struggle, who attained martyrdom at the young age of 23, falls on March 23, 2016. Alongwith Sukhdev and…
Change of guard 100 days into Paris climate pact
By Rajendra Shende US President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met in Washington some days ago and signed a joint statement reiterating their resolve to fight climate change, adding that both the…
Electric buses daily earn 82 percent more profit than diesel vehicles
By Deepa Padmanaban Electric buses generate 27 percent more revenue and 82 percent more profits than diesel buses per day, according to an Indian Institute of Science (IISc) study evaluating electric vehicles for urban transport….
Writer’s cut: Iconic films that could be books too
By Vikas Datta Among the divisions in our already fractured world, one is between those who derive recreation from the printed word and those who like it on the screen. The two are not exclusive…
Citizens should not be forced to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’
By Amulya Ganguli Few people will have any objections to chanting “Bharat Mata ki Jai (Glory to Mother India), but are unlikely to accept the idea of being compelled to say it. They may still…
How 52,911 profitable Indian companies pay nil tax
By Rohit Parakh “Why is it that subsidies going to the well-off are portrayed in a positive manner? Let me give you an example. The total revenue loss from incentives to corporate tax payers was…
UN spat with Morocco: International community shifts on ‘Self Determination’
By Saeed Naqvi Morocco, Algeria, Western Sahara would not be of the highest saliency in South Block had Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi not indulged in some high wire diplomacy involving all three. The issue has…
Cheaper renewable energy has soared past nuclear power
By Amit Bhandari Renewable energy in India has overtaken nuclear power as the country seeks carbon-free sources of energy to balance its reliance on coal. Such energy generation in India is higher than its nuclear…
Indian government’s health, education spend declines over 2 years
By Saumya Tewari The money allocated for key centrally sponsored social schemes Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA or universal education programme) and National Health Mission has declined 10 percent,…
Only 6 Of 21 Indian cities surveyed financially independent
By Prachi Salve Mumbai is Indias best-run city, followed by Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata, Pune and Bhopal, according to a new survey. Also called India’s commercial capital, Mumbai scored five of a possible 10 points on financial…
Realty watchdog, reforms will empower property buyers
By Vinod Behl Once the the Real Estate Regulator (Regulation and Development) Bill, pending since 2013 is passed, the realty regulator proposed in it, along with reforms, will empower and protect property buyers and investors,…
Can India transform economic challenges into opportunities?
By Amit Kapoor and Sankalp Sharma The Indian economy, with its evolution and transformation over the past 25 years, has been a topic of discussion among policymakers and other key stakeholders in India and abroad….
Jaitley’s $13 bn water plan has failed 66 mn farmers
By Abhishek Waghmare A two-decade-old central programme to finish incomplete irrigation projects has failed some 66 million Indian farmers and halted the economic progress of 350 million Indians, according to an IndiaSpend analysis. Finance Minister…
Budget 2016: Will it meet people’s aspirations?
By Amit Dasgupta Ever since then finance minister Shan Mukhan Chitty presented India’s first budget in 1947, the event has been eagerly awaited as the first big-ticket political event of the year. Consequently it should…
Oppression by technology: The author who predicted today’s nightmares
By Vikas Datta A long-running Indian TV game show about a group of disparate people consciously living under the continuous view and direction of an omniscient but unseen observer may make for entertainment for some…
BJP is far from winning the ideological war
By Amulya Ganguli On the day Finance Minister Arun Jaitley claimed the BJP had won the ideological war in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) battle because student leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, had waved the national flag…