Telecommunication is one of the biggest sectors that has continued to grow. It has around one billion subscribers. The growth has particularly been witnessed in rural areas where the market was largely unexplored. On day-to-day basis, telecom-related complaints mostly involve unaccounted deduction of balance, over-charged bills, unnecessary messages for which customers are charged unknowingly and connectivity problems, among others. So what is the current system for a consumer to a file a complaint?

Read about it: Smoke signals from TRAI for harried mobile users
 

Former finance minister and BJP leader Yashwant Singh has said the former prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh should not get the sole credit for taking a bold step of ordering devaluation of rupee in 1991 and kick starting economic reforms. “He had no choice except to present the kind of budget to get over a large loan [from International monetary fund],’ he said.

Read about his exclusive interview with Governance Now: Manmohan Singh had no choice but to go for devaluation of rupee: Yashwant Sinha


 “The crisis was really severe. No one younger than 45 can imagine what it was like. We had run out of foreign exchange, the rating agencies had downgraded us and imports had to be squeezed so severely that GDP growth dropped to 1.4 percent in 1991-92,” said Montek Singh Ahluwalia who was commerce secretary at the time of the 1991 budget that triggered economic reforms.

Read about his exclusive interview with Governance Now: “Trade policy was pretty fundamentally restructured in about 10 hours”

Dr Mukhisa Kituyi is the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). He has extensive background as an elected official, an academic and a holder of high government office. For five years beginning 2002, he was the Kenyan minister for trade and industry. He was convenor of the agriculture negotiations carried out at the World Trade Organisation’s sixth ministerial conference held in Hong Kong, China in 2005.

Read his interview: “[India is an example of] how to tackle development challenges”
 

As the NDA government, aims for a double-digit growth trajectory of the Indian economy, a pay hike to almost one crore government employees and pensioners can come handy, as it will push demand. The  7th central pay commission (CPC), submitted its report earlier this year, and finance minister Arun Jaitley welcomed it, terming it ‘historic’. The cabinet accepted the recommendations last month. However, employees are not happy, and have announced plans for a protest strike.

Read more: Seventh pay commission: A damp squib?