-Business Standard Upward trend continues after base year revision, mainly because of high food prices India's Consumer Price Index (CPI) -based inflation rose to 5.37 per cent in February, from 5.19 per cent the previous month, mainly because of high food prices. After a revision in base year in December, from 2010 to 2012, this was a third straight month to see an upward trend in the rate of retail inflation. The rate...

-Business Standard States will now have to spend from their pockets to keep their social-sector schemes going The 2015-16 Budget seems to have broken the contract between the Centre and the states on sharing the economic burden for delivering social security. The Centre's assistance to the states for social sector schemes has come down from a budgeted Rs 3.56 lakh crore in FY15 to Rs 2.20 lakh crore in FY16. Effectively, while the...

-Business-Standard Even funds for disaster relief being impeded when these come from international bodies Late last year, Caritas India, a venerable and respected voluntary organisation that has responded with alacrity to one Indian humanitarian crisis after another, sent out an appeal through its international network for funds for contributions to relief and rehabilitation work in Jammu and Kashmir, where devastating floods and landslides in September had claimed 282 lives and damaged 2.53...

-The Hindu The Budget overlooks the fact that human capabilities are as important as physical capital for economic growth and the quality of life. It goes back to the days when growth and development sounded synonymous, physical capital was thought to be the key, and human capital took a back seat Once upon a time, around the end of the Second World War, there was a naive view in development economics that...

-The Hindu Will try to bring figure down to 6% by Jan. 2016 The Centre and the Reserve Bank of India signed an agreement last month under which the central bank will prioritise controlling price rise above the other objectives of the monetary policy - interest rates and the foreign exchange rate. The agreement formalised a policy the Reserve Bank had been following since January 2014, which is a significant development in monetary...