Human Capital

Earlier this year in mid-April, the Prime Minister officially launched the National Agricultural Market (NAM), designed to serve as a “pan-India electronic trading portal which networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities” (e-nam.gov.in). First proposed in the Union Budget for 2014-15, the NAM, currently in its pilot phase, includes 21 markets across 8 states and 11 commodities.

In India, legally established Protected Areas have historically been the most important means adopted for biodiversity conservation. Protected Areas (PAs) primarily include National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries, and more recently, Community Reserves and Conservation Reserves. Today, there are as many as 703 PAs all across India, covering almost 5 percent of its land area. With burgeoning demands on land and water, and a high population density of 382 people/square km, the area commitment to PAs shows the national importance placed on biodiversity.

Is NREGS suffering a mid life crisis or are we staring at its death? From a budget of INR 401 Billion in 2010-11, it has plummeted to INR 330 Billion in 2013-2014. Given the much higher wages currently offered to workers, it has taken a serious hit. The position taken by government officials (and many economists) is that there is a general lack of interest in NREGS. The rise in agricultural real wages over the period 2004-05 to 2011-12, coupled with a general dismay regarding quality of assets produced and evidence of corruption, has led to a call for a scaling down of NREGS.

The incentive to create lies at the heart of the classic utilitarian justification for copyright protection. The broad structure – one of exclusive rights and monopolies with public interest exceptions – indicates the dominant, if not singular, role played by utilitarianism while formulating intellectual property law in India. Indeed, if copyright law were only meant to honor creators and respect their creativity, the State could confer prizes and awards on them. The State, desirous that they create more, provides for economic incentives.