Several recent reports put India at the bottom when it comes to gender equality. It is time for a clearly-spelt new policy on women and development. SHAILAJA CHANDRA  “By and large the attitude of a man towards his wife is possibly worse than his attitude towards his buffalo.”--Colin Gonzalves, Human Rights Lawyer The World Economic Forum, in a report titled the Global Gender Gap 2009, has quantified the magnitude of gender-based...

A revolution in small farm management is essential to revitalise the country’s agriculture sector, according to noted agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan. Corporate farming would be detrimental to India. Farming was the largest private sector enterprise in the country, and any bid to take away land from the farmer would be counter-productive. But a symbiotic relationship between farmers and industry, resulting in a win-win situation for both, would be good, he...

Of Indian households’ total annual income, 0.22 per cent is spent on buying newspapers — that is, if total national household annual income was Rs 100, 22 paise would be set aside for newspapers. Paying off bank loans (expenditure under equated monthly instalments) takes up 1.4 per cent of total household annual income. The share of health expenditure is 1.5 per cent, and that of education expenditure, 3.21 per cent....

The price of many commodities are expected to rise this year primarily fuelled by increased demand worldwide, the International Monetary Fund has said. The demand for commodities is anticipated to grow as the global economy is improving, after witnessing one of the worst financial meltdowns in 2009. "Looking ahead into 2010, prices of many commodities are likely to increase further. The demand side should generally be the main source of...

The Prime Minister's economic adviser, C Rangarajan, wants the Reserve Bank to remove excess money from the system to check rising prices as food inflation neared the decade's high of 20 per cent. "We need to see that liquidity does not put inflationary pressures and for that some action on the monetary front would also be required," said Rangarajan, Chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) and a former...