-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...

-Economic and Political Weekly The financial implications of the National Food Security Bill, which has now become law, are going to be huge. This analysis points out that one needs to take into account not only the cost of the food subsidy but also the costs of setting up or running new institutions and bureaucracies, and the costs that are likely to arise if there are political pressures to protect the...

-Economic and Political Weekly The fourth advance estimates of agricultural production in 2012-13 see only a small change in output forecasts, but the outlook for 2013-14 is for a substantially higher level of foodgrain production. In the recent past, the area and production of non-foodgrains has risen faster than of foodgrains. Please click here to read the entire article ...

-Economic and Political Weekly A number of independent estimates have been made of the cost of implementation of the National Food Security Bill, now an Act. However, these estimates are either based on wrong assumptions or work with numbers that are not in the public domain. The one thing that most of them share is an attempt to demonstrate that the costs will be unaffordable. Please click here to access the entire...

-Economic and Political Weekly The government has notified a Draft Land Reforms Policy which, on paper, has all the requisites of an earnest programme. Yet, the near total failure of earlier efforts at land reforms in India leave little room for hope that something substantial will at last be done to combat landlessness. Harsh Mander (manderharsh@gmail.com) is with the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi, and works with survivors of mass violence,...