Workers who found jobs through temporary employment agencies were among the first to find themselves out of work as a result of the global financial and economic crises, according to a new United Nations report released today. The International Labour Organization (ILO) report noted that the largest number of temporary job losses was recorded in the manufacturing sector of developed countries, especially in the car industry. Spotlighting Germany, where between...

The spectre of inflation has returned to haunt India. It is not even six months since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government returned to power but its inability to control food prices is arguably its single biggest failure till now. The inflation rate will eventually come down sometime in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future and the government will surely take credit for bringing prices down as and when that happens. But...

India’s growth is not falling, although it is not as high as before If there is a crisis, there should be economics to deal with it; what use are economists if they are not around to help out when things get bad? And it is not enough to have economics. There was plenty of economics in 1929. As output and employment plummeted, economists said, this is good. It will take...

Why the provision of a good school education is the key first step.  The twin goals of Indian economic planning have been rapid all-round economic growth and equitable sharing of the fruits of development. The country has made significant progress in realising the first objective. But the second goal has remained elusive. After six decades of planned economic development, the disparities have widened and some three-quarters of the population are...

The time has come for a comprehensive right-to-food law to tackle the deprivation and food insecurity that haunts India.  Over the last decade or so, a series of developments have drawn attention to the problem of food security. These are the persistence of hunger in many parts of the country being juxtaposed with food surpluses and stocks; the adverse impact of globalisation on agriculture and rising food prices resulting in...