----- Forwarded Message ----- From: E R F <[email protected]> To: MacroScan Mailing List <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, 2 May 2012, 9:08 Subject: [MacroScan] What's New on Macroscan (April 1, 2012 to April 30, 2012) ________________________________ What's New on Macroscan (April 1, 2012 to April 30, 2012) www.macroscan.org or www.macroscan.net ________________________________ CURRENT ISSUES Affordable Medicine: A big step forward Apr 27th 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar The recent judgement by India's Controller of Patents granting Compulsory License to an Indian pharmaceutical company for the production of a cancer drug, the patent for which is held by German pharmaceuticals and chemicals giant Bayer, is not just historic but path breaking. The Dollar Drain Apr 16th 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar With the government announcing the new liberalised norm for remittances for Indian residents, there has been a spurt in capital outflow from the country. The rising Indian appetite to invest abroad could prove a problem if uncertainty with regard to rupee rises, as such uncertainty could trigger capital flight in a liberalised environment. ________________________________ FEATURES Factor Shares in the Indian Economy Apr 17th 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh The functional distribution of national income is relatively ignored by researchers interested in income distribution in India. An analysis of CSO's data on factor shares in the past three decades shows that the the period of most rapid acceleration of growth was also the period of the sharpest fall in the share of the unorganised sector in GDP. Although this change is to be welcomed, the concern is that it has not been accompanied by any increase in the organised sector's share in total employment. Post-Crisis Reform: A lost opportunity? Apr 3rd 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh In its recently released annual report, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas makes a case for breaking up banks considered too big to fail. But the failure to do that is only one possible way in which the opportunity provided by the crisis to reform and regulate finance has been lost. ________________________________ POLICY WATCH Food and Agriculture: Trends in India into the early Twelfth Plan period Apr 23rd 2012, Rahul Goswami The transformation taking place in India's agriculture and crop cultivation choices is brought about by a few key factors that have begun to heavily influence the patterns of crop cultivation, the movement of food through India and the effect of these on nutrition on different income classes in rural and urban habitats. In this view, foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and the influence of the retail food industry is linked with climate change impacts and the proposed genetic engineering solutions; the combining of agriculture, health and nutrition is aided by pro-technology policies and consumption geared for urbanising India; and the domination by the USA of the crop science, research agenda and market reform process is still evident. These factors are responsible for the repetition of the misdiagnosis of impending hunger in the country by the Government of India as being a consequence of a lack of food, to be tackled today, and tackled exclusively by technological means. ________________________________ ANNOUNCEMENTS Applications are invited from students enrolled in Ph.D. programmes for participating in a one week summer workshop organised by the Azim Premji University in collaboration with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, 9-15 July 2012, Bangalore. [Applications must be submitted by May 20, 2012] Apr 20th, 2012. Call for Papers for the 2012 European Group for Public Administration (EGPA) Annual Conference in the area of 'Public Administration, Technology & Innovation' (PATI) and Special call for papers on 'Management and Innovation in State-owned Enterprises', 5-8 September 2012, Bergen, Norway. [Deadline for abstracts: 1 June, 2012] Apr 12th, 2012. ________________________________ MacroScan is a website managed by professional economists seeking to provide an alternative to conservative and mainstream positions in economics. The site is maintained by the Economic Research Foundation, New Delhi. Website : www.macroscan.org or www.macroscan.net