One of the big surprises in the 2011-2012 budget was that spending on the country’s landmark rural employment program remained flat, disappointing activists who see it as a way of redressing growing Wealth disparities. The program has since 2006 guaranteed 100 days of work a year for unskilled laborers to build rural infrastructure like irrigation ditches and roads. The Congress party has made the program, known as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

On the eve of the presentation of the Union Budget by Finance Minister Pranab Mukhrejee, Janata Dal (United) President Sharad Yadav said here on Sunday that his party wanted an agriculture-friendly budget and that emphasis be given to protect the fertile land of the country. “The Budget should take measures to save the agricultural sector of the country for the sake of food security. Steps should be taken to save the...

In further embarrassment to former Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan, Income Tax authorities on Saturday said they have unearthed black money in possession of three of his relatives during their investigation into allegations of amassment of Wealth by them. "As far as Justice Balakrishnan is concerned, I cannot say anything. But as far as his relatives-- two sons-in-law and brother are concerned, we have found there is black money", director...

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....

The Nagla elementary school in this north Indian town looks like many other rundown government schools. Sweater-clad children sit on burlap sheets laid in rows on cold concrete floors. Lunch is prepared out back on a fire of burning twigs and branches. But the classrooms of Nagla are a laboratory for an educational approach unusual for an Indian public school. Rather than being drilled and tested on reproducing passages from...