Bad marks for UPA

According to the article, only half-hearted attempts have been made by the UPA government to address the agrarian crisis and revive agriculture. Several major recommendations of the national commission on farmers have not been implemented such as the setting up of a price stabilisation fund to protect farmers from falling prices.

The loan waiver scheme has excluded the bulk of debt-driven farmers from dry land areas. The thrust of the government’s agricultural strategy continues to be on expanding the role of the private sector in procurement, warehousing, marketing and contract farming, it says.

The article alleges that the Planning Commission is behaving like a ‘super cabinet’. It is pushing — in the name of public private participation — the privatisation of public resources, it says.

Tax them, now

PD has an article that asks the government to impose a ‘windfall’ profit tax on private/joint venture oil-producing companies and private standalone refineries as a means of dealing with the oil price rise. These oil companies are earning huge profits through the policy of import parity pricing, it says.

It further says that the profits enjoyed by private oil companies in the country have increased along with the increase in oil prices. “By design, the government has dragged down the public sector companies while private sector companies have been allowed to flourish. It is necessary for the government to impose a windfall tax on private refineries, who do not contribute to meet the oil subsidy bill”.

Nuclear politics

An article argues that the current shortage of uranium is not because the India-US deal has failed to come through. The 10,000 MW plan (the target for power production) was finalised purely on the basis of proven Indian uranium reserves, long before any deal with the US was on the horizon.

The article states that the government is trying to paint the temporary shortage as a permanent scarcity to push the India-US nuclear deal.