-Economic and Political Weekly A "high-level" committee makes half-baked recommendations which will rollback the PDS. A ccording to media reports, former Union Minister for Food Shanta Kumar recently disowned the National Food Security Act (NFSA) on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He explained, without blinking, that the BJP had just pretended to support the Act when it was being discussed in Parliament, for fear of the possible electoral consequences of...
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Money in black -Varghese K George and Pheroze L Vincent
-The Hindu Corruption in India has undergone a qualitative shift from the days of licence Raj to the era of liberalisation. Opportunities for making money have come in handy for politicians, who were also dealing with a new political situation of fragmentation and instability. In the days leading to the 2008 Assembly election in Karnataka, slum-dwellers in Bangalore were startled to see small bundles flying in through their windows at night. The...
More »Cashing in on UPA schemes, NDA takes them a step further -Ruhi Tewari
-The Indian Express At a high-level meeting in July itself, Modi set a target of one billion Aadhaar enrolments "at the earliest". Putting to rest speculation about the fate of the previous UPA government's most ambitious scheme - issuing Aadhaar cards and linking all benefits to this unique identity - the NDA government has given it a decisive push with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself taking a keen interest in its rollout. At...
More »India needs more than Narendra Modi's trickle-down model -Maitreesh Ghatak
-The Guardian India's PM points to Gujarat as an emblem of economic success. But despite impressive growth, the state lags behind on welfare Narendra Modi has just unveiled his first budget after winning a massive electoral victory on a development platform. The budget presented last week has disappointed those who were expecting stronger signals about a pro-market shift in economic policy, as well as in the stock market. However, the budget has...
More »Why Delhi needs to step back -Lant Pritchett and Gulzar Natarajan
-The Indian Express Most of the dynamism of the Indian economy comes from its states. They must be given more room to chart their growth trajectories In the euphoria surrounding the election results, it is tempting to avoid facing up to the harsh realities of making development happen. Even for those who characterise the election as "the dawn after the dusk", in the new light of day, India's development challenges remain essentially...
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