Best of BS Opinion: Sugarcane pricing, higher tax-GDP, and more

Here's a selection of Business Standard opinion pieces for the day

To meet its terms of reference, the 15th Finance Commission has recommended a separate mechanism for funding defence and external security but it has facilitated this by a reduction in grants to the states, which works out to Rs 1.5 trillion over five years. “As a consequence, the Commission has penalised the primary engines of development spending in India: The state governments,” the top edit points out. A more lasting solution would have been for the government to focus on improving tax collection as a percentage of gross domestic product to fulfill its obligations, the edit argues. Read it here.
 

In other opinion today: 
 

Aakar Patel recounts the Narendra Modi government’s systematic attempt to curtail civil society through increasingly tough regulations for foreign-funded NGOs. Read it here
 

R Gopalakrishnan reviews the recent history of skirmishes between CEOs and boards in India and globally to decipher what it is that causes the relationship to break down. Read it here
 

The second edit reviews NITI Aayog’s proposal for a price stabilisation fund for the sugar sector and for modifying the revenue-sharing formula to tilt it in favour of sugarcane farmers and explains why these reforms need to go further. Read it here

QUOTE OF THE DAY

‘Facebook may be changing the world, but that doesn’t mean they run it.”

Australian PM Scott Morrison on Facebook’s news blackout