-Express News Service The Human Development Report (HDR), 2011 released today has ranked India at 134th among 187 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI). With an HDI value of 0.547 — where 1 is the highest and zero lowest — India fares worse than the average global value of 0.682, and compares with the HDI value of 0.548 for the South Asian region. Norway sits on top of the pile. India has,...
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Docile populace might makes for low-grade welfare
-The Economic Times Maruti's decision to locate expanded production in Gujarat, following strikes at its plants in Haryana, is being widely interpreted as an instance of virtuous policy being rewarded and worker militancy as well as official failure to check it being penalised. Gujarat's industrial peace is the virtue, and its reward is flow of investment to the 'peaceful' state. However, the posited linear relationship between workforce docility and popular welfare...
More »Gender gap divides India from the rest
-Express News Service For a country making strides as an emerging economic power, gender inequality remains an area where it compares poorly with the rest of the world. India is placed 129th among 146 countries in terms of GII, or gender inequality index, far behind neighbouring Sri Lanka at 74 and lagging most other countries in the region. Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan are ranked 112, 113 and 115 in terms of this...
More »Reckless activism by AG Noorani
Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai in his address to recruits at the National Police Academy sought to enlist them in his campaign. BAGEHOT'S classic explains why and how a genre of civil servants mushroomed in India latterly as executive power, authority and prestige declined. None of them had earlier revealed a particularly strong spine. T.N. Seshan bared his traits once he was appointed Chief Election Commissioner (CEC). Others need not...
More »Dantewada's dilemma by Smita Gupta
The tribal people of Chhattisgarh are in an extremely dangerous situation, caught as they are between the state forces and the Maoists. THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Soni Sori, an Adivasi schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, was arrested in Delhi on October 4 on charges of acting as a conduit between the Essar group and the Maoists, the former accused of giving “protection money” to the latter. On October 7, she moved the Delhi High Court to...
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