India seems to have arrived at the threshold of polio eradication, but should it lower its guard? ON January 13, India achieved what had only two years ago seemed impossible in the immediate term. The country, which, given the epidemiological data in the new millennium, had come to be regarded by health experts around the world as one that would be the last to achieve freedom from polio (poliomyelitis), recorded no...

poverty is concentrated in the informal sectors of the Indian economy, with people in these occupations amongst the worst affected from the pernicious Licence Quota Raid Raj. This is illustrated by the sarkari controls that trap the livelihoods of some of our nano entrepreneurs - cycle-rickshaw owners and pullers - in a web of illegality. Cycle-rickshaws are an inexpensive mode of commute in many cities, and do not cause any...

-The Economic Times   A government-appointed committee has recommended a complete overhaul of government accounting norms with a view to enforcing transparency and better monitoring of public spending.  In its report submitted to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the C R Sundaramurti Committee has suggested rationalisation and reorganisation of the existing account classification of list of major and minor heads of accounts (LMMHA) of centre and states."  The proposed accounting classification structure will provide a...

-PTI   The International Labour Organisation (ILO) today warned there is an "urgent challenge" to create 600 million jobs over the world in the next decade as one in three workers worldwide are either unemployed or living in poverty.  According to the annual report on global employment by the ILO, the world faces the "urgent challenge" of creating 600 million productive jobs over the next decade in order to generate sustainable growth and...

The cash-strapped Bengal government has persuaded the Centre to conduct a fresh survey of the below poverty line (BPL) population in the state. Panchayat and rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee had tossed up the proposal at a meeting with his central counterpart Jairam Ramesh at Budge Budge yesterday. “poverty estimates by the Centre and the state are markedly different…. So we decided to run a check on whether the Left Front government...