-The United Nations   The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported today that global food prices were down for the second straight month in May and that the outlook for worldwide cereal supply has improved considerably since last month. FAO's Food Price Index continued its decline from the 10-month high it experienced in March, the agency said in a news release, noting that prices fell as generally ample supplies weighed on...

-Down to Earth   Delhi High Court exempts four private hospitals from treating the poor for free. Experts fear other hospitals will follow Many a poor patient has benefitted from the Supreme Court's 2011 order which mandates that all private hospitals which received land at a lower price from the government have to treat a certain number of people from the economically weaker sections (EWS) for free. Take the case of four-year-old Shagun, born...

-Brookings India Working Paper   The Women's Reservation Bill, which proposes to reserves 33 per cent of seats in Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies for women, has been doing the rounds of Indian Parliament in various forms since it was first introduced by the Deve Gowda government in 1996, failing each time, to pass. But during all these years that political parties have been passing the buck for their comprehensive failure...

-The Indian Express How Punjab is making the best use of the flawed public distribution system. Inclusive economic growth is a political, economic and social necessity. The question is: what is the right strategy to ensure this? Most of our programmes to help the underprivileged have suffered from leakages and inefficiencies, so that the benefits have not accrued to the targeted groups but the strain on our fiscal deficit remains. Subsidies are...

-The Hindu   Ideological labels are likely to mislead by channelling the debate into issues of capitalism and socialism and detract from the real problem George Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Having forgotten the license-permit-Quota-raj that enveloped us from 1950 to 1980 and its ‘crony socialism,' many intellectuals, mediapersons and politicians have now discovered ‘crony capitalism.' The license raj consisted of stifling controls imposed on...