Freebies for the IPL — at a time of savage food subsidy cuts for the poor — benefit four men who make the Forbes Billionaire List of 2010 and a few other, mere multi-millionaires.  And so the IPL fracas is now heading for its own Champions League. Union Cabinet Ministers, Union Ministers of State, Chief Ministers (and who knows a Governor or two might pop up yet) are being named...

Reveals survey by Centre for Environment and Food Security in 50 villages of Bundelkhand  “Dalit households not getting single day of work” “Scheme is a failure in the remote areas of Bundelkhand” An independent survey has revealed that implementation of the much talked about Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in 50 villages across the drought-hit Bundelkhand region has been rather tardy and mired in corruption with most Dalit households...

Bhisham Singh Yadav, father of the groom, is stressed. His rented Lexus got stuck behind a bullock cart. He has hired a truck to blast Hindi pop, but it is too big to maneuver through his village. At least his grandest gesture, evidence of his upward mobility, is circling overhead. The helicopter has arrived. Mr. Yadav, a wheat farmer, has never flown, nor has anyone else in the family. And...

UNLESS THE prices of vegetables skyrocket and become a scandal — as they have over several weeks now, or as did the price of sugar last year — little in the out-of-sight world of Indian agriculture excites the imagination of the city folks, who influence, rather disproportionately, everything from government policies to newspaper content. Few of those who enjoy a hearty meal and wax lovingly on their favourite dishes can...

Just as microcredit on its own does not represent full financial inclusion, it is our view that neither do business correspondent accounts In a country of 1.2 billion individuals, if we exclude children, we should at least have 900 million bank account holders before we can say the job of basic inclusion in banking is complete. No matter how we count, however, the actual number of bank account holders do not...