Is it me or does this pair of Radish/Muli looks suggestive to you?
Category: Cartoons
vacation and stress
The original SUV
Isn’t it a miracle that in spite of all the technological advances, what we really want is the original old version that we actually started with
World goes flat.
I have now given up my flat screen tv in the hope that my waist line shrinks back to the old golden days
decision making
Ever wondered how even though everybody wanted to be involved in decision making, nobody actually want to take the responsibility of making a decision?
Fatal Error
According to an research by IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute):
For every million rupees spent, roads raised 335 people above the poverty line, and R&D 323. Every million rupees spent on education reduced poverty by 109 people, and on irrigation by 67 people. The lowest returns came from subsidies that are the most popular with politicians – subsidies on credit (42 people), power (27 people) and fertilisers (24 people).
Swami has recently published a very good article on how roads can be one of the most effective way for poverty elevation.
Connectivity enhances the value of every other rural investment, since it empowers people through improved mobility and access. People can more easily buy agricultural inputs and sell their produce. Children can go more easily to schools, cattle can more easily get veterinary help, and the sick can get to health centres. Remote areas have, by definition, the worst connectivity. They are among the poorest and slowest-growing, but accelerate when given connectivity.
Roads can incubate a thousand small businesses, and can convert villages into towns. Government staff are much more willing to be posted to places with good connectivity, so roads improve administration. Rural productivity cannot be high without roads, but can be very high with them.
No wonder even in America the railroad boom came first and then came the rapid growth and development.
When will Indians understand it 🙁
Sometimes this is the news which comes straight from the horses mouth.
courtesy Karthi
I was analyzing Emmar MGF IPO, when I realized this line.
Emmar has 13,024 acres of land of which 80% is agricultural land.
That means that a privately held company had 10,419 Acres of farmland. Now as per my understanding, most states in India have implemented Land reforms. They put a limit of 25 to 40 acres of land that a single individual can hold. The only exceptions to this rule were
a) Plantations. (which needs size to get economies of scale)
b) Privately Held forests (Seizing this land would not have resulted in any benefit to the government, as the only way govt could reuse this land was by cutting down trees. And that does not go really well with the environmentalists.)
Now I know Emmar is just like any other Real Estate development company that has amassed a huge landbank and intends to get it converted to residential/commercial property and develop it. But my question is under what laws was it allowed to purchase such large tracts of agricultural property?
And don’t tell me that the company seized over 10,000 acres of land and is just waiting for the government approval to pour concrete over it. Most of the land must be fertile and the company must be growing some crops/vegetables on it to generate some revenue. If so, isn’t it return of Zamidari System?
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On a lighter note, I liked this cartoon on Premature Ejaculation
Circle of Life
Ruhi has published a nice flowchart which can solve almost all of the life’s problems.