Is the Congress afraid of winning in Gujarat?  Nothing else explains why it lets Narendra Modi tom-tom development when it should have been the Congress banging the drums. The economic achievements of governments before Modi's read like an award citation, but too much secularism has since led the Congress astray. Instead of showcasing its past performance to regain Gujarat, it is obsessed with nailing Modi as a communalist-in-chief. Naturally, it is...

IN preparing the approach paper to the Twelfth Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission engaged “all interested persons” in the country in a wide, web-based consultative exercise and also involved a varied group of “stakeholders”. The resulting document clearly indicates some awareness of the complex problems likely to be faced by the economy in the coming period. But it falls short of expectations because it does not provide a cohesive...

-The Indian Express Unfinished car shells rusting in a deserted factory in India's West Bengal state lie testimony to flaws in a century-old land-acquisition law the government now wants to replace. * Jobs, housing, cash to landowners made mandatory * Costs, project delays to increase - Indian corporates react * Bill to push up costs by 350 pct for big plots - analysts, cos * Bill likely to be passed in December Tata Motors was forced...

-AFP   Asia could be as wealthy as Europe by mid-century, but only if it tackles key challenges from inequality and corruption to climate change, an Asian Development Bank study said Tuesday. On current trends, Asia will make up half the world's economic output by 2050, and another three billion people will have joined the ranks of the affluent, their incomes matching those of Europe today, said the report. But the ADB study...

Breakthroughs in the production and productivity of wheat and rice in the sixties and of cotton recently have been much appreciated, but similar advances in maize have gone largely unnoticed and unsung. Maize output has soared in the past 10 years from a mere 12 million tonnes in 2000-01 to over 21 million tonnes in 2010-11. This increase can largely be attributed to a surge in crop productivity rather than...