Rail transport has traditionally been a more cost-efficient mode of freight transportation than road. But in India, it has remained a problem due to the coexistence of freight and passenger services on the same rail routes, and this has constrained the efficiency and capacity of freight movement.
Policy UpdateSruti Halder Background The National Financial Information Registry (NFIR) was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget 2023-24 speech as a proposed central repository of financial and ancillary information, intended to facilitate the efficient flow of…
In the past, all of India's social sector (an estimated 3 million-plus registered NPOs) had been relying on philanthropy, government grants or funds received via the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mechanism, which are more often than not one-off grants and not income earning.
The Indian e-commerce landscape has historically been dominated by a duopoly, where a few multinational aggregators controlled market access, search visibility, and supply chains. This platform-centric model created massive entry barriers for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), limiting their reach and squeezing profit margins through steep commissions.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. When the war in West Asia intensified in February 2026, the rhyme was not hard to find. Rising crude oil prices expanded India's trade deficits. Foreign portfolio investors were leaving the market. And the rupee had dropped approximately 3.9 percent against the U.S. Dollar between February 27th and June 22nd 2026.
Policy UpdateArya Gupta 1. Background India’s medical devices industry has been unregulated, fragmented and import dependent. Until 2017, the industry was not subject to any specific regulatory regime. The first steps towards oversight were taken with the Medical Devices Rules,…
India’s desire to become Viksit Bharat by 2047 can be fulfilled only if the economy grows at 8% annually for the next 21 years. But such optimism overlooks a structural crisis. The headline GDP numbers conceal a blurred reality (notes former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian rightly).