-The Hindu The findings from the latest International Labour Organisation report on real wages point to a mix of proactive initiatives and policy paralysis in different contexts. The study notes that continuing deceleration in the growth of global real wages and discriminatory pay gaps based on gender and nationality could sharpen household income inequalities. A most striking finding is that labour productivity growth outstripped increases in real wage between 1999 and...

-Livemint The development economist on the Modi government's initiatives and his stand on them, and MGNREGS The Narendra Modi-led government should consider replacing inefficient subsidies with a basic monthly income for all citizens, says Pranab Bardhan , emeritus professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Bardhan, who recently sparred with economists Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya in a debate over the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS),...

-The Hindu In a significant development for the pharmaceutical industry, the Supreme Court has rejected multinational Bayer's appeal to block production and sales of the low cost version of its kidney cancer drug, sorafenib tosylate (branded as Nexavar), by Natco Pharmaceuticals. Hyderabad-based Natco was granted the first and to date only compulsory licence (CL) by the government in 2012 to make and sell a patented drug at a fraction of the...

-Business Standard This would be in addition to 348 drugs already under price ceiling The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has capped the prices of another 52 essential drugs, in a move that could impact drug manufacturers Lupin, Cadila Healthcare and Merck. This is in addition to the 348 drugs already under a price ceiling. The majority of the 52 new drugs are antibiotics, painkillers and medicines used for treating cancer and skin...

-The Hindu Are differences within the middle class, in income, education, and cultural and social capital, so wide as to render moot any ideological or behavioural coherence to this group? The rapid growth of the Indian economy over the past three decades has led to a substantial expansion of India's "middle class". This has triggered a robust debate over who in India actually belongs to the "middle class," its size, composition, and...