Sounding a note of caution, the Economic Survey has stressed that for “growth to be inclusive” India must create adequate employment opportunities—a call that underlines existing inequality, including urban-rural income disparity, and concern that it may increase as more young people enter the job market. While India’s unemployment rate has dropped from 8.2% in 2004-05 to 6.6% in 2009-10, the number of jobless is still huge in absolute terms. The...

-The Hindu ‘But cumbersome anti-graft apparatus can delay decisions'   With a slew of scams vitiating the government's policy-making environment and holding up reforms, the Economic Survey 2011-12 on Thursday advocated need for a ruthless crackdown on corruption, but cautioned that a large and cumbersome anti-corruption bureaucracy could impact decision-making. “While we need to ruthlessly crack down on corruption, it must, at the same time, be recognised that the fear of a large and...

-The Economic Times   Could the Centre freeze the job guarantee scheme during peak agriculture season?  The controversial demand from the agriculture ministry found an echo in the Economic Survey released on Thursday, but was quickly dismissed by rural development minister Jairam Ramesh. While lauding the flagship scheme, the survey listed a few other measures as the way forward. "While the overall performance of MGNREGS has been good, there is scope for improvements...

-The Telegraph The economic survey has challenged an international assessment that has ranked India 125, or near-bottom, among 132 countries on environmental performance, but has acknowledged that air pollution has increased to alarming levels. The survey, released by the Union government today, has questioned the methodology of the Environmental Performance Index 2012 that has assigned air quality in India a rank of 132, the worst in the world, and similarly low ranks...

Budget 2012 has further validated the existence of the Unique Identification Authority of India, whose identity was under question barely six months ago, by giving it more money and responsibilities to shape the government's technological interventions. The government has allocated the UIDAI Rs 1,758 crore from the Budget in 2012-13, a year-on-year increase of 47%, primarily to increase enrolments of Indians for unique IDs to 600 million, from 200 million.  A...