IN preparing the approach paper to the Twelfth Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission engaged “all interested persons” in the country in a wide, web-based consultative exercise and also involved a varied group of “stakeholders”. The resulting document clearly indicates some awareness of the complex problems likely to be faced by the economy in the coming period. But it falls short of expectations because it does not provide a cohesive...

For first time since 1921, India's urban population goes up by more than its rural Is distress migration on a massive scale responsible for one of the most striking findings of Census 2011: that for the first time since 1921, urban India added more numbers to its population in a decade than rural India did? At 833.1 million, India's rural population today is 90.6 million higher than it was a decade ago....

When the boulders started raining down, the toil for survival turned into a trek for staying alive. At least a thousand labourers, many of them from Bengal, fled the site of the 1,200MW Teesta Stage-III hydel power project in Chungthang, North Sikkim, after seeing several fellow workers crushed by hurtling rocks. Last Sunday’s 6.9-magnitude quake, which has claimed over a 100 lives, didn’t just leave a trail of death; it snapped Livelihoods...

The challenges that came into the fore after the recent anti-corruption movement seems to have expedited activities within the UPA government on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has decided to review the performance of MGNREGA in states on September 29. The  decision was taken in the wake of wide ranging recommendations by Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC). It seeks to revamp...

-The Indian Express Unfinished car shells rusting in a deserted factory in India's West Bengal state lie testimony to flaws in a century-old land-acquisition law the government now wants to replace. * Jobs, housing, cash to landowners made mandatory * Costs, project delays to increase - Indian corporates react * Bill to push up costs by 350 pct for big plots - analysts, cos * Bill likely to be passed in December Tata Motors was forced...