Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today reached out to India’s civil society and sought to be in sync with the restive public mood worldwide. Singh warmly appreciated “Anna Hazareji’s movement”, condemning the physical attacks on Team Anna members in recent days, sympathised with the sentiments of the Occupy Wall Street protests and praised the role of the judiciary as central to India’s democracy. In a wide-ranging interaction with journalists on his flight home...

Pawar announces mega plans for mechanisation in 12th Plan Faced with farm labour shortage following the introduction of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday announced mega plans for mechanisation in the 12th Five-Year Plan. “With the successful implementation of the MGNREGS and other anti-poverty programmes, there is now pressure on the availability of farm labour,” Mr. Pawar told senior journalists at the Economic...

-The Business Standard   After lingering tantalisingly close to 10 per cent for about a month-and-a-half, food inflation climbed to double digits for the week ended October 8, signalling that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may continue with its tight monetary stance in its policy review later this month despite the economy showing signs of a slowdown in growth. As protein-based items turned dearer, wholesale price-based annual food inflation rose by a whopping...

-The Economic Times   Chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu has said that part of the blame for the sustained high inflation in India must go to rising wages.  Basu believes that labour cost differences between the developed and labour-surplus countries such as India that have been in existence for a long time have now started narrowing which is feeding into higher prices within the country.  "The reason for inflationary pressures in India is that...

The members of Bhartiya Kisan Union on Tuesday threatened to take a six-month holiday every year for 10 years from framing if the government fails to take note of the hardship faced by farmers over rising prices and acquisition of farm land for commercial activity. Rakesh Tikait of Uttar Pradesh said with increasing input costs, farmers were finding it difficult to cultivate round the year. “If the government does not pay...