President Pratibha Patil today reaffirmed the government’s resolve “to maintain the momentum for reforms on a wide front”, prompting policymakers to outline the possible economic agenda ahead of the budget just a week away. Top officials offered their take on the phrase, mentioned in Patil’s speech to Parliament at the start of the budget session. According to the them, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee are looking to...

There was in fact a successful auction of spectrum — only it was not conducted by the government but by its corporate sector cronies who made a fortune on the deal. On one pronouncement of his, you have to agree with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. His is not a ‘lame-duck government.' Cooked goose seems the more appropriate soubriquet. However, not a single new scam worth over Rs. 1 lakh crore has...

Members of eight major central trade unions and independent workers'/employees' federations will march to Parliament on February 23 to protest against what they call the “indifferent and don't care attitude” of the Manmohan Singh government to the “steep rise in the prices of essential commodities, rampant violation in implementation of labour laws, plight of unorganised workers, and reckless contractorisation of employees.” The Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), trade union wing...

Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu high on HDI: study In a study done by Abusaleh Shariff, chief economist at the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Gujarat surprisingly emerges as a State with high levels of hunger, while simultaneously boasting high per capita income and consistent income stability. The hunger levels in Gujarat are higher than in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and surprisingly even higher than in Uttar Pradesh, according to...

So what caused the French Revolution? Food prices did. A hailstorm destroyed French crops, food prices rose 88 per cent in one year, and hungry Parisians turned on their rulers. Ditto with the Tian-an-men showdown exactly 200 years later, in 1989: consumer prices rose 21 per cent in a country that had known virtually no inflation under Communist rule. The Suharto regime got overthrown in Indonesia in 1998 after food...