July 21, 1983

More than a year ago, a blue-ribbon mayoral panel recommended sweeping changes in the New York City taxi industry. Six months later, Mayor Koch endorsed several of the recommendations, saying that as a result ''there will be positive and visible improvements in taxi service.'' But little has changed. Several of the proposals have been stalled by administrative and legislative inaction or by opposition from taxi drivers. And amid the delay, all 11,787 medallion taxicabs are driving with permits that expired seven weeks ago.

The Navy and the Grumman Corporation have agreed that the aircraft maker, once threatened with interrupted production, would continue building F-14 fighters and A-6 bombers into the 1990's, according to Congressional, Navy and industry officials. The F-14 Tomcat is the Navy's premier fighter, and the A-6 Intruder is its mainstay bomber. Together, the two were the source of more than half of last year's $2.1 billion in revenue for the Bethpage, L.I., aircraft maker. Officials said that the agreement between Grumman and Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman Jr. was scheduled to be presented to the Defense Resources Board for approval next Tuesday. The board, the Pentagon's executive committee, is headed by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger.

Although plastic was brought into industrial use in 1909 by L.H. Baekeland of Yonkers, it was not until after World War II that the modern miracle substance was used in a wide variety of consumer goods, among them speedboats, dentures and flamingos. Previously flamingos were made of cement. Before that they were made by God. WHEN the flamingos return to K mart, summer is nigh in suburbia. For years they have flocked by the hundreds to discount stores and garden centers. By the time of the summer solstice, when the ceremonial Lighting of the Grills was past and the drone of the power mower was upon the land, one could observe flamingos posed on lawns and grazing in shrubbery in all their shocking - especially to the neighbors- pinkness. Shirley Bernell stopped at the display of pink plastic flamingos in a Fairfield, N.J., garden center the other day and asked her husband: ''Dick, do you think we should get some of these?'' He looked at her, speechless, as if all their years together had meant nothing, then walked slowly to the checkout counter with a can of mosquito repellent, shaking his head.

The Reagan Administration won a narrow but crucial victory tonight on the MX missile system. By a vote of 220 to 207, the House decided to authorize $2.6 billion in the coming fiscal year to produce the first 27 of the intercontinental nuclear weapons, which are to be deployed in underground silos in 1986. The vote was on an amendment to delete the MX funds from a bill authorizing $188 billion in military spending for the next fiscal year. More Votes Are Ahead Proponents of the missile argued that it was needed to modernize the aging United States missile arsenal and to force the Soviet Union to take disarmament talks more seriously. Opponents contended that there was no ''missile gap'' as the Administration contended and that to deploy the MX would heighten military tension because the weapon would be viewed by the Russians as an offensive missile for a first strike rather than as a deterrent weapon.

Paul A. Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said today that the board had raised the limit on the growth of the money supply for the rest of the year. Some analysts said the decision could ease upward pressure on interest rates. In making his announcement, during Congressional testimony, Mr. Volcker indicated that the Federal Reserve would no longer try to offset the 14 percent growth in the basic money supply - the money that is readily available for spending - that has taken place since December. That growth was twice as fast as the Federal reserve had wanted. But he insisted that from July onward, the Federal Reserve, which is the nation's central bank, would not permit a continuation of such rapid growth. The growth rate is to be held in a range of 5 percent to 9 percent for the rest of the year, he said. That range represents an easing from the 4 percent to 8 percent that had been planned last January for all of 1983.