Land according to Ricardo is limited in supply and of different grades of fertility.
Rent arises as differential advantage which superior lands possess over the inferior lands.
Rent arise from the operation of the Law of Dimin-ishing Returns.
Rent is a surplus over and above no rent land.
Rent does not enter into price.

rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give." — Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI "Of the Rent of Land"

differential advantage of the superior land over the inferior gives rise to Economic Rent.

A new paper by Atif Mian of Princeton University, Ludwig Straub of Harvard University and Amir Sufi of the University of Chicago expands on the idea that inequality saps demand from the economy. Just as inequality creates a need for stimulus, they argue, stimulus eventually creates more inequality. This is because it leaves economies more indebted, either because low interest rates encourage households or firms to borrow, or because the government has run deficits. Both public and private indebtedness transfer income to rich investors who own the debt, thereby depressing demand and interest rates still further.

Alfred Mitchell-Innes, writing in 1914, argued that money exists not as a medium of exchange but as a standard of deferred payment, with government money being debt the government may reclaim through taxation.

sectoral break-up of PPP projects, we would find that almost all of the projects have come up in economic infrastructure (power, transport, and telecom) compared to social infrastructure.Social infrastructure (like water supply, solid waste management, health and education) have low cost-recovery and, consequently, face massive resource-crunch.

10th Schedule of the Indian Constitution popularly referred to as the ‘Anti-Defection Law’ was inserted by the 52nd Amendment (1985) to the Constitution.

A large number of emerging economies, especially China and some of its South-East Asian neighbours, got their manufacturing activities integrated with Global Value Chains (GVCs) to achieve efficiencies of scale and reap its benefits. Such an approach to integrate Global Value Chains and become an integral part of the Global Supply Chain significantly helped China to become the ‘factory of the world’ and transform itself into a formidable economic giant.

Land prices in India are very high, which makes running large dairy farms unviable. So, dairy farming in India will continue to be dominated by small and marginal farmers.

Milch animal holding is far more equitable than land holding. About 85% of the total farmers are small and marginal. While they together own about 47% of farmland, they own about 75% of milch animals.

Self-reliance in state-run heavy industries and strategic sectors in the decades following independence had placed India ahead of most developing countries. In the 1970s and 80s, however, India did not modernise these industries to climb higher up the technological ladder.

India is traditionally a large medical solutions importer; this is the first time there is a nationwide push for local innovation to provide the same.2. In the face of reduced global competition and mistrust in China’s products, Indian innovators are encouraged by a strong local pull-effect for their products and solutions—the first time for many innovators.

15 per cent of rural households had internet access,

How does the typical student’s home (where most would access OE) compare with a typical TEI campus? Census 2011 tells us that 71 per cent of households with three or more members have dwellings with two rooms or less (74 per cent in rural and 64 per cent in urban areas).

We have long ignored the vital role public educational institutions play as exemplary sites of social inclusion and relative equality.

Reports show that SLPs comprise about 60-70% of the Supreme Court’s docket. Out of this, 80-90% of SLPs are dismissed, which means only 10-20% of such cases raise important questions of law. This takes up a lot of time of the Court. A simple solution would be to do away with immediate oral hearing of SLPs. The Supreme Court Rules could be amended to provide for a structure of pre-hearing of SLPs. Every SLP must be accompanied by an application for oral hearing which must be decided first by the Court, and that too in chambers. To assist the Court for that, a cadre of judicial research assistants made up of qualified lawyers should be created. The research assistants can go through each SLP and cull out the important questions of law as envisioned in Article 136. Thereafter, the Court may or may not allow applications for oral hearings based on whether such questions of law merit its attention. Only such SLPs in which oral hearing is permitted should be listed for hearing. SLPs in which no questions of law are raised, or frivolous ones are raised, should be dismissed without oral hearing and upon imposition of costs. This will ensure that only meritorious SLPs get judicial attention and will deter people from filing frivolous SLPs. It will also reduce pendency exponentially as the system will free up the Court’s time to hear statutory appeals and matters pertaining to interpretation of the Constitution or constitutional validity of laws or executive actions.

Supreme Court Rules, 2013 should amend provisions pertaining to Special Leave Petitions (SLPs). Article 136 of the Constitution enables people to file a petition seeking leave to appeal a decision of any judicial or quasi-judicial authority. The Supreme Court grants leave to appeal if the petition raises a question of law of general public importance, or if the judgment appealed against is especially perverse, which would require interference from the Court. The provision has been abused over the years to only clog the docket of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was never intended to be a court of appeal, barring such appeals which specific statutes provide for. The High Courts are usually meant to be the final courts of appeal. Instead, SLPs are now being treated as the last round of appeal.

In terms of their border dispute, India and China are struggling with what game theorists refer to as a “commitment problem.” Meaning A commitment problem arises when two states, who would be better off in the present if they consented to a mutually beneficial agreement, are unable to resolve their disputes due to different expectations of future strengths, and a consequent inability to commit to future bargaining power or a division of benefits.

He founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828 along with Debendranath Tagore. Brahmoism began as a monotheistic reformist movement of Hinduism.

Essential Commodities Act (ECA) of 1955, bringing a Central legislation to allow farmers to sell their produce to anyone, outside the APMC mandi yard, and having barrier-free inter-state trade, and creating a legal framework for contract farming — the buyer can assure a price to the farmer at the time of sowing. Let me explain each one of these, and why I consider them as game-changers.

pandemic has exposed a hard truth: most private healthcare providers seem to be incapable of and unwilling to help even during a national crisis. And India’s private sector in health is sizable. According to recent figures, the private sector accounts for 93% of all hospitals, 64% of all hospital beds, and 80-85% of all doctors.

a labour-surplus country. Particularly at the lower ends of the labour spectrum where less education is required, there is usually an excess supply of labour which gives more bargaining power to employers.

Low latitudes are those locations found between the Equator (0 degrees N/S) and 30 degrees N/S. The middle latitudes are found between 30 degrees N/S and 60 degrees N/S. And the high latitudes are found between 60 degrees N/S and the poles (90 degrees N/S)

Dos Santos, a principal guru of the Latin American “dependency school” that advocated greater self-reliance for developing economies, defined dependence as a situation in which a country’s economy is “conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy”. Writing in the 1970s, Dos Santos said that to be self-reliant the growth process of an economy “should not become dominated or dependent on another economy”. So what is the kind of dependence that India ought to be now reducing to become more self-reliant? On which economies is ours excessively dependent?

It will increase informal employment in the formal sector instead of encouraging the growth of formal work.

Depriving workers of fundamental rights such as freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, and a set of primary working conditions (such as adequate living wages, limits on hours of work and safe and healthy workplaces), will create a fertile ground for the exploitation of the working class.

rationale for scrapping labour laws to attract investment and boost manufacturing growth poses two additional questions. One, if the laws were in fact so strongly pro-worker, they would have raised wages and reduced business profitability. But the real wage growth (net of inflation) of directly employed workers in the factory sector has been flat (2000-01 to 2015-16) as firms have increasingly resorted to casualisation and informalisation of the workforce to suppress workers’ bargaining power, evidence suggests. Two, is it right to blame the disappointing industrial performance mainly on labour market regulations? Industrial performance is not just a function of the labour laws but of the size of the market, fixed investment growth, credit availability, infrastructure, and government policies. In fact there is little evidence to suggest that amendment of key labour laws by Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in 2014 took them any closer to their goal of creating more jobs or industrial growth. The role of labour market regulations may be more modest than the strong views expressed against them in the popular debates.

A 2% wealth tax on the top 1% of the population, together with a 33% inheritance tax on the wealth they bequeath every year to their progeny, could finance an increase in government expenditure to the tune of 10% of GDP.

eveloping countries are increasingly pushing back against the intellectual property regime foisted on them by the advanced economies over the last 30 years. They are right to do so, because what matters is not only the production of knowledge, but also that it is used in ways that put the health and wellbeing of people ahead of corporate profits.