Third party motor policy’s turnaround

UNTIL RECENTLY general insurers would not issue third party motor polices in respect of commercial vehicles. While the private sector players bluntly said no, their public sector counterparts did so mostly covertly. This warranted designing a new mechanism to manage third party claims arising from insuring commercial vehicles. The insurer is permitted to retain 10% [...]

Politics without Borders

Fujimori, two terms President of Peru who is under house arrest in Chile is contesting elections for a parliamentary seat in Japan. Borderless politics seems to have arrived in the world and maybe we Indians need to start adopting it in small doses.
The Congress split because a few who believed that Indian citizens of foreign [...]

Put agriculture in concurrent list to serve farmers

Although placing agriculture in the State list is actually a legacy of the Government of India Act, 1935 (as is water, entry No.17), it is obvious that leaving the States to their fate in agriculture would tantamount to inviting starvation and famines.By placing agriculture in the Concurrent List, serving farmers and saving farming becomes a [...]

Food Shortages: Will they be back ?

No doubt for improving the infrastructure government needs to acquire farm land. But by neglecting the reforms in the agricultural sector and focusing only on industrial reforms, are we bringing back the specter of famine and food shortages?When some members questioned the lengthy time frame, the explanation provided was that the land being purchased was [...]

Monitoring Pension Funds

The regulator’s job is not over with just putting in place the architecture for management of pension funds or for that matter, any fund. In the past there have been occasions when not only the regulated but also the regulator has failed miserably.THE MULISH PENSION reforms in the country seem to be gathering pace with [...]

Sky chart showing Venus and Saturn

Stargazers and young astronomers witness a rare celestial conjugation on Sunday as Venus the planet of love courted the ringed Saturn.
Venus is bright in part because it comes closer to Earth than any other planet. Saturn is the most distant world that one can easily see with the unaided eye. These two bright pinpoints in [...]

Three years after the killing, family still awaits justice

THE FAMILY MEMBERS of Ram Lal, who along with three other porters was allegedly killed in a fake army encounter in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir in April 2004, still cannot come out of the grief and disa sociate themselves from the cherished moments spent with Ram Lal. “The time when Ram Lal left [...]