-The Pioneer   Bhubaneswar: Home is an integral part of life and determinant of standard of living and progress of society. Rural Odisha witnesses a very poor standard of habitation and lack of proper housing for lakhs of poor people who are dreaming of a house of their own to live with dignity. Socio-cultural barriers, landlessness and lack of credit for housing are some of the major reasons which deprive rural poor of...

-The New Indian Express   BHUBANESWAR: With women's participation in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) on a decline in the State, the Odisha Government has asked the district collectors to adopt women-specific plans to reverse the trend. Apart from specific types of work which are favourable to women, facilities at the work sites and if possible, incentives must also be provided to district coordinators, the collectors have been told. In...

-Outlook   The author of the surprise international bestseller, Capital, in the 21st Century, thinks that abolishing Income Tax is not a good idea Books on economy rarely move beyond the peer group of economists and their academic circle. But those old presumptions are now being put to the test and the rules are being rewritten from the time 42-year old French economist, Thomas Piketty, went viral. The publication of the English edition...

-The Indian Express   Contrary to conventional wisdom, the UPA lost despite an inclusive, growing economy.   Economists have been busy telling us that the economy decided the election result. We heard it during the campaign and they have been at it again in their post-mortems. They are wrong. Consider some evidence.   Most Indians live in rural areas. Elections are won and lost there. So for any government, it makes good electoral sense to look...

-The Business Standard   Policy must target faster growth in labour-intensive sectors It was reported on Wednesday that a sample of large manufacturing companies saw their workforce grow at an average rate of almost three per cent every year over the past decade. Putting aside technical niceties such as the representativeness of the sample, to the extent that the companies covered are mostly market leaders in their respective sectors, this statistic is very...