Troubles continue for the government's dream project Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Already battling a staff crunch, its request for Rs 7,000 crore to roll out 60 crore UID numbers in the first phase has been shot down by the Empowered Finance Committee (EFC). "The EFC is understood to have refused to entertain the request of the UIDAI for Rs 7,000 crore to execute the first phase of the ambitious...

Along with expanded availability and access, safety is one of the three prongs of food security. However, we in India have shockingly little control over the quality of the food we consume — apart from flat-out contami-nation at the level of agricultural produce to the hidden dangers of additives and preservatives and flavours, which can contain benzoates, glutamates, mono- and di-glycerides, nitrates, nitrites, and sulfites, all of which are linked...

The official line is simple. Since we cannot afford to feed all the hungry, there must only be as many hungry as we can afford to feed. There was irony in the timing of the petrol price decontrol order. The decision, which also covered major hikes in diesel and kerosene prices, and affects hundreds of millions of people, came even as Manmohan Singh advised world leaders in Toronto on the need...

Normal life has been disrupted in many parts of India after the country's main opposition parties began a 12-hour strike to protest against the increase in prices of fuel. West Bengal, Kerala and Bihar states along with Mumbai were worst affected. Businesses were shut, schools and colleges closed and public transport thin in the affected states. The government has raised fuel prices - a move that will add nearly one percentage point to...

The Union budget estimates the nominal rate of growth for the Indian economy to be 12.5 per cent during the current fiscal. While it is impossible to figure out the manner in which this number was arrived at, the government has predicted further that the inflation-adjusted real growth rate for the same year will be eight per cent. Simple arithmetic requires that the difference between the nominal and real growth...