-The New York Times India's coalition government just celebrated the third anniversary of its tenure with a self-congratulatory banquet that could not have been more poorly timed: India's currency, the rupee, is falling; investment is down; inflation is rising; and deficits are eating away at government coffers. While short-term growth has slowed but not ground to a halt, India's problems have dampened hopes that it, along with China and other non-Western economies,...

-The Assam Sentinel DIPHU: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), was introduced with an objective to provide legal guarantee of 100 days of wage in a financial year to every rural household, whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work at the minimum wage rate as has been prescribed for agricultural labour in the State. However, instead of helping the poor in their uplift, MNREGA has become a...

-The Hindu With emphasis in the 12th Plan on the social services sectors for achieving more inclusive growth, the Delhi Budget has allocated Rs.9,796 crore or 65 per cent of the total Plan outlay of Rs.15,000 for 2012-13 on this sector. The money, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said, will be used for various social welfare schemes. These include the Dilli Annashree Scheme, under which two lakh vulnerable households would be provided food...

On 23rd May, Moneylife wrote on how a Kerala citizen was denied access to Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel Report (WGEEP). The Central Information Commission and the Delhi High Court ordered the ministry to make it public. It has now been uploaded on its site Just when one wondered whether the ministry of environment & forests (MoEF) would turn to the Supreme Court after the Delhi High Court on 17th May,...

It needs pensive reflection to understand how an organisation whose name is perhaps the most widely recognised public sector brand across the length and breadth of India could become the target of so much instant anger and contempt in the highest legislative forum of the republic. Krishna Kumar (anhsirk.kumar@gmail.com) teaches education at Delhi University. The cyclone that hit Parliament on 11 and 14 May over the so-called cartoon controversy indicates, among other...