-ANI Ahluwalia appreciated the State Government for strategy to make growth more inclusive and giving right priority to social sector The Planning Commission has approved an annual plan outlay of Rs 47,000 crore for Karnataka for the year 2013-14. The plan size was finalized in a meeting between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah here last evening. The plan size has been agreed at Rs. 47,000 crore...

-The Indian Express Why the proposed national minimum wage is the wrong answer to questions of unemployment and poverty The recent national labour conference - a trade union love fest with little real employer participation - demanded a national minimum wage. The trade union demand is a predictable positioning of narrow self-interest as national interest but the government's acceptance of their demand is unfair, delusional and economically stupid. Unfair, because it pampers a...

-The Economic Times India's demographic dividend stands postponed, if we go by the employment figures garnered by the latest, 68th Round survey of the National Sample Survey Organisation. The proportion of the workforce living off agriculture has fallen below half, for the first time, which marks a milestone in the economy's structural diversification and moving people out of low-value agriculture and under-employment. A third major finding is that women are withdrawing from...

-The New York Times CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - MODERN India is, in many ways, a success. Its claim to be the world's largest democracy is not hollow. Its media is vibrant and free; Indians buy more newspapers every day than any other nation. Since independence in 1947, life expectancy at birth has more than doubled, to 66 years from 32, and per-capita income (adjusted for inflation) has grown fivefold. In recent decades,...

-The Economic Times Criticism of the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) has led to the government dropping the idea of issuing an Ordinance and, instead, saying it would try to get the Bill passed in a special session of Parliament. But doubts persist over the very concept of the Bill. Is it not extravagant to subsidise food for such a large part of the population when the poor constitute only 30 per...