The major problem that the media is addressing these days is the consumer price index. This is going to be discussed during the budget session. The focus has to turn to consumer pricing. People also face policy problems because of their wage negotiations and Inflationary expectations. Consumer prices escalate by 5 percent every month and that is the first issue that needs to be addressed and attended as of now....

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented Budget 2011-12 in Parliament on Monday promising to stimulate growth and bring down Inflation. Admitting that food Inflation remains a matter of concern, Pranab said that the economy could have performed better. He said that the development needs to be more inclusive while announcing increased outlay on social sector schemes. "Total food Inflation is down from 20.2 per cent last year to 9.3 per cent...

Larry Summers, the recently departed Chairman of US President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, posed the following question before his trip to India last November: “What is the self-perception of the Congress as a political party?” In fact, this broad question provokes three specific ones in the domain of economics. Is the Congress the party of Jagdish Bhagwati or Amartya Sen; Nehru or Indira Gandhi; or Aruna Roy or Nandan...

India's finance minister announced on Monday a food security bill for 2011/12, a measure that would provide cheap grains for millions of India's poor but which has sparked worries of a huge fiscal cost. It was one of the first signs of populism in the annual budget as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confronted high prices and corruption scandals as well as elections in five states this year. In his ongoing budget speech,...

Several agri-experts, including noted scientist M S Swaminathan, today said the Budget 2011-12 did not address several important issues facing agriculture, although they welcomed some proposals as being pro-farm. Swaminathan, known as the father of the Green Revolution in India, said the Budget had several good proposals but it did not have a strategy to keep farmers on farm and attract youth in the agriculture sector. "It is unfortunate that in a...