The huge expenditure on the food bill, with the attendant leakages, could well make fiscal recovery impossible In the first part of this article, we have estimated the actual cost of implementing the food security bill in its current form. In this part, we now examine the fiscal sustainability of the same. The current state of the revenue and expenditure trends of the Central government (refer table) show that while revenue...

Liquor baron Ponty Chadha’s mercurial rise is all ‘Maya’ A reclusive liquor baron may seem like an anomaly in these never-ending good times. But Gurdeep Singh Chadha—better known by the moniker Ponty Chadha—fits the bill. Often called “Mayawati’s financier”, the 57-year-old Ponty has been making large (if silent) waves for the political patronage he enjoys in Uttar Pradesh. Any bottle of liquor sold in India’s most populous state goes through his...

-The Economic Times   In 2007, 27-year-old Kaushalendra from Bihar shunned the placement frenzy, which would see many of his colleagues earn fat salaries, in favour of a more homespun alternative: Selling fresh vegetables on a push cart to residents of his hometown Nalanda.  Putting together whatever money he had, Kaushalendra began the venture in 2008 and soon started doing well. People didn't mind paying a little more if they saw value in...

It is getting harder for jobseekers to return to gainful employment and for new entrants to find adequate jobs, says the ILO. THERE is little in the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) annual projection of job growth to cheer about. The year 2012 has been described as a year of stark reality. A third of the global workforce is currently unemployed or poor; that is, 200 million members of the 3.3-billion-strong global...

-The Telegraph Income tax officials today searched the house and two dozen properties of a liquor baron said to be close to Mayawati, the simultaneous raids apparently throwing up a chest that needed gas-cutters to prise open. TV reports claimed the chest — found in the basement of a Noida mall said to be owned by Gurdeep Singh Chadha — could be stashed with notes worth over Rs 100 crore, but late...