The government passed the historic Right to Education Act (RTE Act) making education a fundamental right of every child.The Act makes it obligatory for the government to ensure that every child in the six to 14 years age group gets free elementary education.According to government estimates, there are nearly 220 million children in the relevant age group, of which 4.6%, or nearly 9.2 million, are out of school.Under the Act,...

Technically, we know how to check the black economy but the problem is political. More studies or committees and treaties with foreign governments are only to stall action. Another Joint Parliamentary Committee has been announced. The government has been trying to create an impression of being proactive with regard to tackling the black economy. The President's address and the speech by Sonia Gandhi in January mentioned the need to curb it....

Policy reforms required to bring about better convergence of schemes Streamlining of environment clearance for infrastructure projects suggested Higher farm sector share in economic development needed The Economic Survey 2010-11 has advised the government to carry out nearly a dozen reforms pertaining to various sectors of the economy and stressed that action in this regard would be necessary to achieve the 9 per cent GDP (gross domestic product) expansion projected for 2011-12 and...

Cash transfers, the latest global development fashion, involve several risks in India, not least the risk of forgetting the need for continuing structural change. WHEN I was growing up, several decades ago, middle-class society in India was always a little delayed in catching on to Western fashions whether in music or dress or in other aspects. The past decades of globalisation seemed to have changed all that. Modern communications technology...

Although finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had promised food security and inclusive growth in his budget speech last year, hunger continues to stalk over 300 million citizens of the country. India slipped to 67th place in the Global Hunger Index 2010 rankings of 122 countries prepared by International Food Policy Research Institute. An Oxford University report said that 410 million Indians live in poverty. While there may be nit-picking over the...