-The Economic Times Retail sector liberalisation has been revived and included in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's package of big-bang reforms announced recently. This was to be expected as an element of the package since the influential minister Jairam Ramesh, who has access to Sonia Gandhi and is identified with her NGO-dominated set of advisers whose knowledge of economics is outweighed by their enthusiasm, had already announced his conversion to retail sector...

-The Economist Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time. But it is not inevitable, says Zanny Minton Beddoes IN 1889, AT the height of America’s first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux...

-The Business Standard China, India's nearest economic rival has the second best score in the world Despite steady economic growth and robust social sector spending, India's score in Global Hunger Index has returned back to the 1996 level raising questions over the speed at which it has brought down the proportion of undernourished people, underweight children and child mortality. According to the findings of the Global Hunger Index 2012 by  the International...

-The Times of India India ranks 65th out of 79 countries on the Global Hunger Index, a new report by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide has said. The report has sharply criticized India for not moving fast enough to reduce malnourishment, and has said that its nutritional indicators are far worse than its economic indicators merit. India's ranking has not changed since 2011, when it was 67th...

-The Hindu India Against Corruption should realise the ‘aam aadmi’ needs not only decentralised power but also a lofty vision There are two underlying themes of India Against Corruption’s new party: the induction of good people and “people’s power” through consummate decentralisation. The vision document sets out a quest for “swaraj,” people’s right to self-determination. This ideal of self-determination has been conflated with direct democracy. Thus the vision document indicates that “as...