Union Rural Development Minister C.P. Joshi on Friday maintained that the Centre was set to increase the wage rate paid under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), but it was for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to address the issues raised by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Dr. Joshi said it was not for him to react to the recommendation made to Dr. Singh by Ms. Gandhi — in her...

India has lost nearly a half-trillion dollars in illegal financial flows out of the country, says a new study by Global Financial Integrity. India is losing nearly Rs.240 crore every 24 hours, on average, in illegal financial flows out of the country. The nation lost $213 billion (roughly Rs.9.7 lakh crore) in illegal capital flight between 1948 and 2008. However, over $125 billion (Rs.5.7 lakh crore) of that was lost in...

The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser.  What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...

Vedanta, Posco and Sindhudurg. The issue is the same — the need for a well-thought-out policy relating to extractive and resource-based industry. The government’s withdrawal of mining permission to Vedanta on the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa’s backward Kalahandi district; the divided verdict by the Gupta Committee on the Posco iron ore project; and the environment ministry’s concern on 49 mining licences issued by the Maharashtra government for bauxite and iron...

We need spectacle in the capital, not mundane things like schools and hospitals in villages In the final years of the Roman Republic, the Senate kept the masses happy by distributing cheap food and staging big spectacles known as the circus games to get votes. In his satires, the Roman poet Juvenal observed witheringly that governance had been reduced to panem et circenses (bread and circus/games). He was referring to the...