Corruption and inflation, the bugbears of UPA-2, dominated discussions Congress functionaries held with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee amid expectations from the party that a populist Budget would help check the negative tide against the Centre. Party leaders are hoping specifically for income tax relief for the middle class and concessions for rural populace as the budgetary antidote to the negativity post-2G spectrum scam. Mukherjee assured his party that prices would come down...

Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu high on HDI: study In a study done by Abusaleh Shariff, chief economist at the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Gujarat surprisingly emerges as a State with high levels of hunger, while simultaneously boasting high per capita income and consistent income stability. The hunger levels in Gujarat are higher than in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and surprisingly even higher than in Uttar Pradesh, according to...

More than 90 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh have been rescued by police from a boat drifting in India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago area. All of them were starving and seriously dehydrated, police said; 25 have been admitted to hospital. Doctors at the hospital said they had been on the high seas without food and water for more than a week. The migrants said they were set adrift in an engine-less boat on the...

Twice every year, between 1981 and 2000, a helicopter would whirr around the hills of the Western Ghats in Kasargod, a district in north Kerala bordering Karnataka, spraying endosulfan over the cashew plantations on the upper reaches. Children would rush out to take a look at the helicopter and the white spray would settle like mist on their heads and on leaves and shimmer in the sunlight. But that’s also...

If you thought that globalization and privatization would reduce the glamour and clamour for government jobs, you couldn't be more wrong. The first-ever state-backed study on aspirations and expectations of youth in Karnataka suggest that at least 60% of 14-34 year-olds -- irrespective of their education, economic status and place of study - prefer a government job. Fuelling their aspiration for a government gaddi seems to be job security, which is...