There was a lot of apprehension before budget day regarding what the Union finance minister will do to reduce the deficit. Will he roll back the tax concessions implemented a couple of years ago as part of a Fiscal Stimulus package? Will he announce populist social sector spending in view of the major state polls coming up this year? Will he be too timid and not take any bold steps...

India's finance minister announced on Monday a food security bill for 2011/12, a measure that would provide cheap grains for millions of India's poor but which has sparked worries of a huge fiscal cost. It was one of the first signs of populism in the annual budget as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confronted high prices and corruption scandals as well as elections in five states this year. In his ongoing budget speech,...

The United Nations began laying the groundwork today for a global “social protection floor” that would guarantee food security, health services for all and old-age pensions, with a senior official stressing that all that is lacking is the political will for an initiative needing minimum investment. “Social security is a human right. We’ve forgotten that for a very long time, but roughly only 20 per cent of the global population has...

Chief economic advisor to the finance ministry Kaushik Basu says the government should step in and acquire land for development projects to protect the interests of farmers. He also explains why the government cannot tackle food inflation by distributing free foodgrain among the poor. Excerpts from interview with ET: A large number of land-intensive project have run into opposition. Could it actually undermine our infrastructure thrust and growth? There is...

Tight money policy means more capital inflows: ADB Lower middle class worst affected by inflation Infrastructure development, farm productivity can help With the Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based overall inflation still hovering at around 10 per cent, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday said that it was likely to scale up its inflation forecast for India by the end of September. Speaking to the media after the launch of the ADB's flagship annual statistical...