The United Nations began laying the groundwork today for a global “social protection floor” that would guarantee food security, health services for all and old-age pensions, with a senior official stressing that all that is lacking is the political will for an initiative needing minimum investment. “Social security is a human right. We’ve forgotten that for a very long time, but roughly only 20 per cent of the global population has...

The ministry of rural development has demanded a nearly 60% increase in the allocation for its marquee job guarantee scheme in the forthcoming Union budget for fiscal 2011-12. The ministry has sought an allocation of around Rs. 64,000 crore, up from Rs. 41,100 crore, for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), a ministry official said, requesting anonymity. MGNREGS, the flagship programme of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government...

I was awakened early one morning recently by someone who said he was enormously enjoying my on-going debate on economic growth in India. I was very pleased that I had given someone some joy, but I also wondered what on earth he could be talking about, since I have not been involved in any such debate. As it happens, I am getting a steady stream of telephone calls and electronic...

Large inflow of onion from Gujarat has helped rein in high prices of the vegetable, which is now available at Rs 25-30 a kg in retail markets, in the national capital, traders said. "Increased arrival of onion from Gujarat from January 25 onwards boosted supply in the national capital due to which price of the vegetable crashed to Rs 25-30/kg," Onion Merchants Association General Secretary Rajendra Sharma told PTI. The prices of...

Activists hope that a popular agitation against the setting up of a factory to manufacture asbestos products in the eastern Bihar state will result in a nationwide ban on the large-scale import into this country of the deadly mineral fibre. Following six months of agitation against the setting up of the factory in the Chainpur-Bishunpur area of Bihar’s Muzzaffarpur district, state chief minister Nitish Kumar sought to lay blame on the...