How economically sustainable is food subsidy? The cost could even be double of what the government estimates Food deprivation and malnutrition are completely unacceptable and everything has to be done to eliminate such an evil. The prevalence of malnutrition in a country like India is in itself a cause for serious concern since malnourished children may jeopardise India’s favourable demographic dividend (as per independent estimates, close to 60 per cent of...

The advance estimate of national income in 2011-12, released recently by the Central Statistical Organisation points to a decline in India’s GDP growth rate from 8.4 per cent last year to 6.9 per this year. The government, obsessed with growth rates, is deeply disappointed. Hence there is already talk of the need to respond and demands that the Reserve Bank of India should reduce interest rates are being heard. There...

-The Indian Express   Pranab Mukherjee should use his waking hours to signal bold reforms Until a few years ago no one really thought that governments could go bust. But the deepening sovereign debt crises of Europe have now persuaded us that governments can go bust if their debt levels cross a certain danger mark. What is that danger mark remains a matter of research by economists around the world. Some studies have concluded...

The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

-AP   Efforts by India and the European Union to strengthen trade are threatening India's ability to deliver lifesaving medicines to the world's poorest, analysts say as the two sides push through protracted negotiations on a free-trade pact.  India's prime minister and top EU officials are hoping their summit Friday in New Delhi helps move beyond disagreements over issues like European labor market limits and Indian duties on cars.  But health industry workers and...