Indigenous groups and Dalits continue to be at the bottom in most indicators of well-being, the Muslims and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) occupy the middle rung, while forward caste Hindus and other minority religions are at the top. The “Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition” survey has found this. These patterns are seen in a variety of indicators, including household incomes, poverty rates, landownership and agricultural...

The state must ensure that individual freedoms not only exist, but that everyone has the ability to experience them The ongoing theories of justice in mainstream political philosophy are very strongly dependent today on a way of thinking largely initiated by Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century, with an overwhelming concentration on a hypothetical “social contract” that the people of a sovereign state can be imagined to have endorsed. This presumed...

UNLESS THE prices of vegetables skyrocket and become a scandal — as they have over several weeks now, or as did the price of sugar last year — little in the out-of-sight world of Indian agriculture excites the imagination of the city folks, who influence, rather disproportionately, everything from government policies to newspaper content. Few of those who enjoy a hearty meal and wax lovingly on their favourite dishes can...

Many of our politicians would still rather ignore the informal sector and the women who form its backbone. They do so at our peril. India is undergoing enormous change. In a very short time, many Indians have become much richer, and our country is now often described as a “world player” economically and politically. Despite this transformation, our rich history, culture and traditions rightly remain important. Indeed, our success rests...

WELL before Budget 2010-11 was presented, inflation had emerged as the principal economic problem in the country. With food-price inflation running at close to 20 per cent, even the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre had been forced to recognise it as a problem that deserved as much attention as the objective of achieving a 9 or 10 per cent rate of growth, if not more. In fact,...