-Frontline     Attempts by the Congress-led UPA government to adopt the ordinance route to pass the Food Security Bill fail as the opposition parties are more or less united in seeking a Bill that provides universal PDS coverage. THE National Food Security Bill (NFSB), 2013, touted as the biggest game changer for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in the 2014 parliamentary elections, will go through yet another round of discussions...

-The Indian Express Why the proposed national minimum wage is the wrong answer to questions of unemployment and poverty The recent national labour conference - a trade union love fest with little real employer participation - demanded a national minimum wage. The trade union demand is a predictable positioning of narrow self-interest as national interest but the government's acceptance of their demand is unfair, delusional and economically stupid. Unfair, because it pampers a...

-The Hindu While the focus is on pilgrims, nobody is talking about the fate of boys and men who came from their villages in the Mandakini valley to earn during the yatri season It is one week since Uttarakhand's worst disaster in living memory. Flash floods resulting from extremely intense rainfall swept away mountainsides, villages and towns, thousands of people, animals, agricultural fields, irrigation canals, domestic water sources, dams, roads, bridges, and...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Poverty level in the country may have declined significantly between 2009-10 and 2011-12, the latest government survey on household consumer expenditure indicates, giving something to the beleaguered UPA government to hard sell ahead of elections next year. Back of the envelope calculations by ET suggest that poverty levels have fallen to less than 25% of population because of a sharp rise in rural incomes and decent performance...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: A study commissioned by the Planning Commission to validate the growth estimates of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan has thrown up a rather depressing outlook for the economy, sending alarm bells ringing in the government. An independent think tank, the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), has pegged average annual growth for the Twelfth Plan at a mere 4.8%, if the present logjam in policymaking continues. The NCAER...