-The Hindu   Moratorium to be in place till December 31, 2012 The government has decided to initiate legal action against cooperative banks and financial institutions violating the moratorium on debt relief for fish workers. Meeting Minister for Fisheries K. Babu announced this after a meeting with Minister for Cooperation C.N. Balakrishnan and chairman of the Debt Relief Commission for fish workers M.R. Hariharan Nair here on Sunday. Mr. Babu said the moratorium would remain in...

The robust 9 per cent –plus growth in South Asia till 2010, driven largely by India, where it came down to around 7 per cent in 2011-12, had one major qualifier: it was mostly associated with a rapid rise in labour productivity rather than an expansion in employment, according to the latest report Global Employment Trends from International Labour Office. Up until the end of the millennium, that is just a...

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday threatened to bring her anger to the streets of New Delhi and launch an agitation in the capital if the Centre didn't give in to her demand for a moratorium on debt repayment. In a rare and exclusive interview to TOI at the Writers' Buildings in Kolkata, the Trinamool Congress chief didn't once utter the words "threat" or "pullout", but her message was...

A moratorium is not the magic bullet that can slay Bengal’s fiscal demons, several economists have said, pointing out that postponing the inevitable will be of little use unless backed up by a revenue mobilisation road map. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had yesterday set a 15-day deadline for the Centre to announce a three-year moratorium on the payment of interest on the loans Bengal had taken. “A moratorium on repayment obligations can...

-The Economist West Bengal’s populist chief minister is doing badly. Yet she typifies shifts in power in India BUYER’S remorse is common enough in the dusty markets of Kolkata, a delightful if crumbling great city, once known as Calcutta and still capital of the state of West Bengal. Those who buy cheap plastic goods or plaster-of-Paris busts of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengal’s cultural hero, may come to regret their haste. Likewise, many who...