-The Telegraph The government is proposing to make it mandatory for all companies, in the private as well as public sector, to do a religion-based headcount of their workforce in an effort to check discrimination. The minority affairs ministry is planning to bring a law that will require companies to reveal employee details, including religion and caste, under the proposed Equal Opportunity Commission. “This will ensure equal opportunity for all and the government...

-Pratirodh.com The fanfare with which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi launched a service delivery scheme in Rajasthan based on the Aadhaar (foundation) unique identity (UID), and celebrated the issue of the first Aadhaar number topping the 200-million mark, should make the Indian National Congress a very worried party indeed—assuming it has a good survival instinct and basic grasp of practical politics.    To put it starkly, the Congress and...

-The Hindu Robert Vadra may be the most talked about property developer in Haryana but the emergence of links between the man who sold Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law his first plot of land and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has shone a spotlight on the crucial role played by the Congress-run government in turning realty in the State into a business worth thousands of crores of rupees. Records of all licences granted...

-The Business Standard The rural jobs scheme can boost productivity in farm and textiles sector. There is mounting evidence that Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of 2005, under which 100 days of guaranteed wage employment a year was to be provided to target households, is failing to meet its stated objectives. The total cumulative expenditure since 2005 under the MGNREGA is officially estimated to be Rs 1,50,000 crore, and the...

-The Economic Times A new book by Bibek Debroy on Gujarat looks at how this much-talked about state has performed in economic terms. The author argues history, luck and administrative clarity have been the determining factors. There has been a discernible pickup in Gujarat's growth performance since the 10th Plan (2002-07), the five-year Plans being natural periods for breaking up the timeline. It's tempting to argue that there is nothing exceptional in...