-The Indian Express   There was a bitter argument over the provisional poverty line put out by the Planning Commission in an affidavit to the Supreme Court, which drew the line at Rs 32 per capita per day in urban areas and Rs 26 per person in rural areas. The Planning Commission has now “clarified” its position. While the Tendulkar Committee line will remain a point of reference, various welfare entitlements will...

-The Hindu Business Line   Input subsidy expenses not contributing to boost productivity The World Bank has said that South Asia's foodgrain stock management, especially in India, needs to improve to tackle inflation. In its focus on food inflation in South Asia, the bank said that high stocks have led to high wastage due to inadequate storage capacity and technology. According to World Bank's estimates, the Food Corporation of India lost 10-16 million tonnes...

The multinational refuses to be sensitive to the grievances of its Indian workforce, which generates the greater proportion of the company's profits. The workers of the Maruti Suzuki India Limited's (MSIL) plant in Haryana's Manesar have been agitating since August-end against the dismissal and suspension of more than 60 of their colleagues and the management's insistence on their signing a ‘good conduct bond' before they are allowed to enter the plant....

The acronym LPG has several expansions. It stands for liquefied petroleum gas. It stands for liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, a term of abuse used by those with Leftwing persuasions. It stands for life plundered by the government, sentiments associated with those who are against state intervention, but increasingly felt by the so-called middle class - however defined - because of price hikes, and proposed price hikes, for petroleum products. Ostensibly, price...

Planning Commission affidavit not to be taken as the last word' An embarrassed government swung into damage control mode on Wednesday, in response to widespread criticism of an affidavit filed by the Planning Commission that suggested that an individual income of just Rs 25 a day constituted adequate “private expenditure on food, education and health,” at a time when even the minimum wage was pegged at over Rs.100 a day, the...