The only economic or social variable that has not moved since 1991 in India is our 93% informal employment in the informal sector. So, while we have smartly and substantially moved the needle on everything from foreign exchange reserves, infant mortality, school enrolment, market capitalisation, foreign investment, and pregnancy deaths, 9 out of 10 of our workers do not work in organised employment. Informal employment—what President Alan Garcia of Peru...

The economy shows consistent signs of growth. The challenge in the new year is to make development more equitable and broad-based… 2010 was a year of relief that soon grew into despondency. We were relieved that India had pulled out of the deepest post-War recession relatively unscathed. The soundness of its cautious macro-economic management was underlined once again and the US economy is also looking like getting slowly back on...

The Bengal government today pushed through a controversial bill that will empower the state panchayat department to create a parallel school education system with nearly 20,000 rural schools. The West Bengal Panchayat Board of Education Bill had fuelled widespread concern at its conception itself but the Left government bulldozed the legislation through the Assembly today in the face of a walkout by the combined Opposition. At the root of the overdrive appears...

In a bid to ensure inclusive growth and increase employment opportunities, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) will develop 15 business clusters in different parts of Punjab, an official said on Sunday. "Currently, 20 such clusters are operational in Punjab which are providing employment to lakhs of people here," Assocham secretary general D.S. Rawat said here. "These proposed clusters will be established at a budget of around Rs.500...

Mahitosh Sarkar came here from his distant village in West Bengal 12 years ago looking for a better life, and he found it. He abandoned the penniless existence of a subsistence fisherman to become a big-city vegetable seller. His wife found work as a maid. Their four children went to school. Their tiny household, a grim but weather-tight room in a dilapidated tenement, had a color TV and a satellite...