-The Hindu The Union Ministry of Labour has done well to raise the salary cap for availing Employees' State Insurance (ESI) to Rs.25,000. While the move is expected to expand coverage to an additional five million workers and their dependents, this is still small comfort in a country where barely three per cent of the workforce enjoys any social protection. The evolution of ESI has been characterised by an accent...
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Have Gujarat and Bihar Outperformed the Rest of India?: A Statistical Note -R Nagaraj and Shruti Pandey
-Economic and Political Weekly In the popular and media imagination, fed by economists and columnists, Gujarat and Bihar have both recorded an extraordinary economic performance in the past decade. But a careful analysis shows that Gujarat, always one of the richest states, has done no better than before. In neither industry nor agriculture has its position radically changed. The only dramatic difference has been the emergence of import-dependent and export-oriented petroleum...
More »A public hearing against the public-Suvojit Bagchi
-The Hindu Tamnar, Raigarh: Standing on the edge of a monstrous, black gorge 72 year old Kaniram, a Birhor tribal, stretched his left hand to point at the mud thatched house that he had in the hill slope. However, one could only see waves of unending charcoal coloured hills in the backdrop. The area - definitely not less than few hundred square kilometers - looks grey but Kaniram found the whole...
More »WPI, CPI divergence seen in food inflation-Partha Sinha
-The Times of India Mumbai/DELHI: Has the government's statistical office erred with data collection relating to food prices, either by chance or design, for calculating the two inflation indices, Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for August? Else how can someone explain the fact that while food prices as shown in WPI for August exhibit a higher rate of inflation now than a year ago, food inflation as measured...
More »Onions drive inflation to six-month high at 6% in August-Somesh Jha
-The Business Standard Central bank chief Raghuram Rajan likely to retain stance later this week, say economists Inflation in onions skyrocketed to 244.62% in August against already high 119.4% in the previous month, jacking up the the rate of wholesale price rise to a six-month high of 6.10% from 5.8% in July, official data showed today. Ironically, onion prices can't be brought down by interest rate policy, but it is all set to...
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