-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...

-The Hindu No consensus among UPA allies on FDI: Prakash Karat Patna: Ahead of the vote in Parliament on foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said here on Saturday that since parties with a majority were opposed to the policy, there was no consensus among the allies of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on the issue. Asked about the dithering position of the...

-The Hindu The U.S. special supplement scheme for women, infants and children to prevent undernutrition is a model that India can learn from India’s economic growth over the last 15 years, and the growing size of the middle class, have become a source of attraction for international investors, especially in the retail food industry. However, the gap between the rich and the poor has only widened: nearly 40 per cent of the...

-The United Nations Temperatures this year are the ninth highest on record since 1850 despite the effect of La Niña, a meteorological phenomenon which is supposed to have a cooling influence on the Earth’s atmosphere, says a new United Nations report released today. High temperatures were accompanied by unprecedented melting of the Arctic sea ice and multiple weather and climate extremes which affected many parts of the world. The findings are among the...

-Outlook Don’t blame globalization for inequality – but rather policies hijacked by a few Economic globalization in the sense of expansion of foreign trade and investment is, of course, somewhat anaemic, reflecting the impact of global recession, although still vigorous in the sense of continuous international transmission of technology, information, ideas and social media. But in the world of politics and policymaking a cold wind is blowing, dimming earlier enthusiasm for global...