-The Hindu Are differences within the middle class, in income, education, and cultural and social capital, so wide as to render moot any ideological or behavioural coherence to this group? The rapid growth of the Indian economy over the past three decades has led to a substantial expansion of India's "middle class". This has triggered a robust debate over who in India actually belongs to the "middle class," its size, composition, and...

-FirstPost.com Not all U-turns are bad. Some are good, like the one by the NDA government on the MNREGA, also called NREGA . For the uninitiated, the new NDA government had about three months back proposed to make changes to the pro-poor scheme launched by the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance. According to media reports that cited a circular, the proposal was to amend the NREG Act by restricting the area of work...

-The Hindu It is not the responsibility of the government alone to act in order to curb corruption; corporate firms need to be proactive as well in checking fraudulent financial practices The winter session of Parliament witnessed a noisy debate on the black money controversy. Governments of all hues have disappointed the Indian janata on the issue of black money and the failure is often associated with a perceived nexus between politicians...

-The Indian Express How many jobs must be created to realise our demographic dividend (or avoid a nightmare)? Half of India's population is below 25. The worst-case scenario is that enough jobs are not created for the millions entering the labour force each year, and that this semi-educated mass becomes a force driving social conflict. The reason that East Asian countries (especially China) rode the wave of the demographic dividend and dramatically...

-The Hindu Providing people with a modest basic income instead of subsidies would save public revenue With oil prices falling, it was perhaps a good time to fade out fuel subsidies. All subsidies are inefficient and distortionary, and most are regressive. The same could be said of costly public works schemes as well. By contrast, the debate on direct benefit transfers has moved into a more sensible phase, with the posturing criticism of...