President Pratiba Patil today said the Centre is consulting state governments on the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), which will give the poor a legal entitlement to subsidised foodgrains. “The states are being consulted as the success of the programme (NFSA) hinges critically on their commitment to reforms in the public distribution system (PDS),” Ms. Patil said in her address to Parliament to mark the beginning of the Budget Session. The...

Economists often tell the story about the drunk, the coin and the lamp-post. A drunk is searching around a lamp-post for a coin. On being asked where he dropped it, he waves unsteadily in the darkness beyond reach of the lamp-post’s light. Why not look there? Because, he tells you, the light’s over here. The point, for economists, is that our approach to problems is frequently warped by what data...

There was in fact a successful auction of spectrum — only it was not conducted by the government but by its corporate sector cronies who made a fortune on the deal. On one pronouncement of his, you have to agree with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. His is not a ‘lame-duck government.' Cooked goose seems the more appropriate soubriquet. However, not a single new scam worth over Rs. 1 lakh crore has...

The commerce department has urged policymakers to lift export curbs on all varieties of non-basmati rice, which will ensure parity in the treatment of rice producers across the country. Earlier this month, the government allowed export of 1.5 lakh tonnes of the premium varieties Sona Masoori, Ponni and Matta, all grown in the southern states of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The department has communicated to the empowered...

The government put out a promised new price index on Friday that will capture changes in prices of goods and services sold at the retail level, helping the government and the central bank get a better grip on policy tools while tackling Inflation. Central banks world over rely on retail prices while framing monetary policy, but the Reserve Bank of India has had to consider mostly the wholesale price index...