Economics is the art of evaluating the cost of the opportunity foregone. This is a delicate skill, as are all things that dabble in what-might-have-been. It is never that difficult, therefore, to over- or underestimate the size of the opportunity cost. In the case of the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the awarding of 2G licences, the figures should certainly be open to debate. They certainly come...

Microcredit is losing its halo in many developing countries. Microcredit was once extolled by world leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as a powerful tool that could help eliminate poverty, through loans as small as $50 to cowherds, basket weavers and other poor people for starting or expanding businesses. But now microloans have prompted political hostility in Bangladesh, India, Nicaragua and other developing countries. In December, the prime minister of...

The Central Information Commission (CIC), the final appellate authority for the Right to Information (RTI) Act, has asked the Planning Commission to include disclosure norms in all future public-private-partnership (PPP) projects undertaken by the Centre and the state governments. Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra has written to Planning Commission deputy-chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to incorporate disclosure norms, so that any project which has the participation of private firms and concessionaires come...

The year 2010 was a tumultuous one for micro-finance institutions (MFIs) in India. It began with the highly successful SKS Microfinance public issue, which prompted other prominent MFIs to announce similar plans. It ended with the tumult in Andhra Pradesh which was marked by the state’s legislation to regulate the sector, severely impairing its ability to survive. MFI recoveries are down and they, in turn, have fallen behind in their...

Hidden behind all the administrative scandals that rocked India in 2010, illegal mining is an unnoticed beast that has been eating into the country's soul.   While corruption in spectrum allocation and the conduct of the Commonwealth Games are primarily about monetary loot, illegal mining is about invaluable non-renewable natural resources.   In at least five major states, there were more than 20,000 complaints of illegal mining filed, but the perpetrators carried on with...