The idea of interlinking rivers is appealing because it is so grand, but this is also the reason it is nothing more than a distraction The Supreme Court recently issued a diktat to the central government about the scheme to interlink rivers. The directions are straightforward. The government shall set up a high-level committee of ministers and other representatives on interlinking of rivers; the committee shall meet “at least once in...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Budget 2012, built yet again at the altar of fiscal fundamentalism, will not convince anybody. In this era of immediate assessment it took just a few minutes for the Union Budget for 2012-13 to be given one or the other negative appellation – “lacklustre”, “anti-growth”, “back to the 1980s”, “without reform” and the like. Such evaluations forget that union budgets have long since ceased to be statements of...

The massive spread of the UP foodgrain diversion scam came to the fore when CBI told the Supreme Court that it has filed FIRs against over 2,000 people, including politicians and public servants, during its investigations in just five places. No other single scam in India's history has seen registration of FIRs against so many persons and this could also be worrisome for the Akhilesh Singh Yadav government as the list...

THE DEBATE on the National Food Security Bill, tabled in parliament three months ago, is on full swing. Economists from both sides are arming their arguments with facts and logic. The people who would benefit of this legislation are in a dilemma. This prompts the consideration that the experts must try to see the issue from the ground reality of food security and its beneficiaries. Undoubtedly, it’s a great and historical...

Montek Singh says he is willing to revise poverty estimates on the basis of expert opinion Though the incidence of poverty has come down over five years from 2004-05 to 2009-10, it is a startling fact that inequality has increased, with fewer people controlling income. Union Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia admitted on Tuesday that income distribution was not at the desired level and inequality increased in both rural and...