Food prices have hit a 10-year-high as supply shortages due to poor monsoon and floods in some parts finally bit hard, forcing a worried government to announce a step-up in imports and strengthening expectations of RBI tightening policy to stop a breakout of inflation in the wider economy. Prices of potato, other vegetables and pulses drove inflation to 19.95% in the year to December 5, surging from 19% in the...

The collapse of the Dubai dream is not without any implications; it may be an indication that the travails of finance capitalism are not over. GLOBAL capitalism is in a phase in which it must deal with the fruits of the overextension during the previous boom, and there is no doubt that this is going to be painful. The financial crisis in the United States and some other developed countries...

Missing job cards, fudged muster rolls and diversion of NREGS funds through fake bills. What the Rajasthan social audit has revealed is the tip of the iceberg.  Bhilwara-2009 invited a swift and strong backlash — the government backed off realising it had stepped into a quagmire of corruption The battle being fought in the panchayats, streets, offices, and courts of Rajasthan is not just about social audit To understand why civil society...

After a gap of almost a decade, all the nine major trade unions on Wednesday jointly staged a dharna in front of Parliament to protest against price rise, job loss, and disinvestment of public sector undertakings. This is the first time that the Congress-led INTUC has joined hands with All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and CITU, besides HMS and BMS. The All India Bank Employees Association’s agitation also coincided with...

For about a week after the Dubai crisis broke, international financial markets chose to ignore it. Stock-markets climbed, commodity prices rose and the dollar continued to be beaten down. It is not too difficult to explain this initial indifference. For one, the magnitude of the Dubai crisis appeared piffling, at first glance, compared to the “subprime” crisis or the meltdown following “Lehman’s bust”. When global banks had run up losses...