The budget is more concerned about the consumer than the grower A LOOMING food crisis in the world and high food inflation rates at home made Pranab Mukherjee’s proposals to boost agriculture in his 2011 budget more keenly watched than usual. These are factors that clearly weighed with the finance minister who repeatedly said that his principal concern this year has been the continuing high food prices. The squeeze on the...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Total Matching Records found : 1923
Enrolment in primary schools plunges 2.6 million in 2 years by Hemali Chhapia
It is a lesson in misplaced enthusiasm. While the Centre has been busy tom-tomming its efforts to send more children to school, enrolment in primary classes across the country has, in actuality, dropped since 2007. Between 2008-09 and 2009-10, enrolment in classes I to IV in Indian schools dropped by over 2.6 million. The biggest setback was witnessed in Uttar Pradesh, where admissions plummeted by over a million in the last...
More »Advani targets PM, Left says C in Congress stands for Corruption
A WikiLeaks cable that suggests the Congress was paying MPs to support the government during a vote of confidence has triggered a ferocious new assault on the government by the Opposition. "This government must quit," said LK Advani, BJP leader, adding that "The PM must take responsibility and resign...he has no moral authority to lead the government." The Indian players who star in the cable have denied its claims. Pranab...
More »Too bad to swallow by Milind Murugkar , Bharat Ramaswami and Ashok Kotwal
The National Advisory Council (NAC) has now sketched out the “contours of a national food security bill”. The goal is worthy: “Protecting all children, women and men from hunger and food deprivation.” To some, the bill might appear utopian. The truth is worse. The bill reminds us of John Stuart Mill’s denunciation of a government policy of his day: “What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be...
More »‘Cash for votes a way of political life in South India' by Sarah Hiddleston
Politicians admit breaking election law: ‘yes, that's the great thing about democracy' Politicians and their aides in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh admitted to violating election law to influence voters in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls through payments in the form of cash, goods, or services, according to a revealing cable sent to the State Department by Frederick J. Kaplan, Acting Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate-General in Chennai. In...
More »
