The economic resolution adopted by the All India Congress Committee at the Burari session is a reiteration of the party’s last two election manifestos. It combines a commitment to rapid economic growth with that to redistributive policies that would help make the growth process socially inclusive. There is a helpful explanation of the three sources of inflation — excess demand, improved prices to farmers and global commodity price inflation —...

Congress President Sonia Gandhi's five-point plan to counter corruption, announced during the recent plenary session of the party and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's offer to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the spectrum scam are, on paper, reasonable measures aimed at reversing the toll the series of scams and controversies have taken on the government. But without concrete action and setting up of mechanisms which can effectively implement counter-corruption...

Retail giants pushing the European Union-India free trade deal promise consumers a "new and dynamic retail experience" but ignore the fate of India’s "mom-and-pop" stores and some 40 million people they employ. Four years in the making, the EU-India Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement made serious headway during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Brussels Dec. 10 and is due to be signed and sealed early 2011. But the negotiations have...

India will not be a nation until the aam aadmi's “progress is based not on who he knows but on what he knows,” Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi told cheering delegates at the 83rd plenary session at Burari here on Sunday. On a day when his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi declared war on corruption, Mr. Gandhi's devastating critique of the “system” took the audience by surprise. “Corruption is...

The Congress has proposed the introduction of an RTI-like legislation exclusively for “corporate corridors”, floating what looks like a nascent idea at a time some industrialists have criticised the government after the leak of the Niira Radia tapes. The suggestion was made in the latest issue of the Congress mouthpiece Sandesh and released today at the plenary where Sonia made an anti-corruption drive the Cornerstone of her speech. “The Right to Information...