Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a strong sounding speech in Parliament on Thursday said that "if there is a scam it must be dealt with the law of the land. Law of the land must punish the wrong doers". "Unfortunate developments have taken place in the areas of telecom and Commonwealth Games. I assure the House there is nothing we will not do to clean our public life," Manmohan Singh said. "Our...

Thousands of people have gathered in the Indian capital, Delhi, to take part in a rally to protest against rising food prices and unemployment. A steady stream of protesters, carrying red flags, has been marching through the streets of central Delhi since early morning. The rally has led to massive traffic jams in the city. Trade unions who have called the rally say nearly 40,000 people will attend a meeting at the Ramlila...

Although finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had promised food security and inclusive growth in his budget speech last year, hunger continues to stalk over 300 million citizens of the country. India slipped to 67th place in the Global Hunger Index 2010 rankings of 122 countries prepared by International Food Policy Research Institute. An Oxford University report said that 410 million Indians live in poverty. While there may be nit-picking over the...

The Government has revised the wages for unskilled manual workers under the national rural employment guarantee scheme by indexing it to inflation, Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said today. He told the Rajya Sabha during Question Hour that the original National Rural Employment Guarantee Act provides for wages to be indexed to the Consumer Price Index for agricultural labour. Against the Rs 100 per day wages originally approved, actual wages given are...

With India growing faster than almost every other large economy, the government is right to address its long-run challenges. The push for investment in infrastructure is bearing fruit and the expansion of social programmes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Right to Education Act (RTE) is spreading the benefits of growth across the population. But just as improved infrastructure doesn’t eliminate all traffic jams, rapid growth...