-The Economic Times The government may be forced to trim its legislative agenda - including pushing through long-pending bills on pensions, insurance and banking - following Congress' debacle in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab assembly elections.  Pension, insurance and banking sector reforms are part of the legislative agenda of the UPA Government but BJP leaders told finance minister Pranab Mukherjee at an outreach session that the government should first set its House in...

Ritesh Gautam is a resident of a backward area in Pohara village in Dharni tehsil in Melghat. He migrated to Madhya Pradesh in search of work. Manohar Bode from Seamdoh village went to Solapur for the same reason. Both are back home to celebrate Holi, the biggest festival of tribals. Like Gautam and Bode, there are many youth from the region who left home in search of jobs. They are victims...

-The Hindustan Times The UPA’s record of policy flip-flops endures. The latest instance is a ban on exports of cotton that seems headed for revocation less than a week after it was announced. The commerce ministry’s line that India has exported more cotton this season than it can afford to without hurting consumption at home does not wash with partners of the ruling alliance or with the political bosses of cotton...

Parliament must use budget session to discuss key pending bills The budget session of Parliament begins today. The last few sessions have been characterised by disruptions and consequent loss of productive time. To see one indicator, the 15th Lok Sabha, half-way through its term, has lost 30 per cent of scheduled time — the worst ever. As a result, many important bills have been pending. It is to be seen whether...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can be devastatingly polite: when Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari, who has a commercial interest in agriculture, wrote him a doomsday letter on the dire state of agriculture under UPA rule, Dr. Singh took a month to reply, but when he did, it was to tell the BJP president in excruciating detail about the rise in agricultural production during his tenure in office, which compares...