Why don’t we see more Indian language content on the internet? For instance, there are over 200 odd million people who can read and write in Hindi. But Hindi doesn’t figure in any listing of the top ten languages used on the internet globally. Japanese, a cussedly difficult language to read or write, makes it to the top five. This, from a country with less than one-tenth the population of India. It...

THE boom in demand for apparel and mobile phones may soon be over as Indians plan to spend less on fun and entertainment to deal with rising food prices, a Nielsen study says. Indian consumers are extremely cautious about rising food prices and a sizeable section may defer purchases by 6-12 months, says the latest Nielsen global consumer confidence index released on Monday. Some companies, including LG Electronics and Future Group, agreed...

A recent newspaper report noted that the Union Government had gazetted the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification 2011 and received strong criticism from organisations that work for protecting coastal ecosystems and fight for the rights and welfare of fisherfolk. About 20 organisations working in the field of protecting fishermen's rights and lawyers backing them have taken strong exception to the notification. This is on the ground that the new notification,...

The countrywide share of corporate retail in food distribution tripled in the past four years when retail food prices showed the greatest increase. THE dramatic increase in food inflation over the past two years has been associated with several surprises. One major surprise has been how the top economic policymakers in the country have responded to it. The initial response was one of apparent disbelief, followed very quickly by the...

The economy shows consistent signs of growth. The challenge in the new year is to make development more equitable and broad-based… 2010 was a year of relief that soon grew into despondency. We were relieved that India had pulled out of the deepest post-War recession relatively unscathed. The soundness of its cautious macro-economic management was underlined once again and the US economy is also looking like getting slowly back on...