-The Indian Express Why the proposed national minimum wage is the wrong answer to questions of unemployment and poverty The recent national labour conference - a trade union love fest with little real employer participation - demanded a national minimum wage. The trade union demand is a predictable positioning of narrow self-interest as national interest but the government's acceptance of their demand is unfair, delusional and economically stupid. Unfair, because it pampers a...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Between 2009-10 and 2011-12, the proportion of people working slipped slightly in India, and the share of unemployed persons ticked up, a government report released on Thursday has revealed. In 2009-10, 36.5% of the population was gainfully employed for the better part of the year. By 2011-12, the proportion of such workers had dipped to 35.4%. Meanwhile the unemployment rate went up from 2.5% to...

-Outlook As the Manmohan Singh government makes evident its unfriendliness to villages, the nation hurtles towards disaster. It's a danger no one wants to face. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been trying for years to make us believe that agriculture is a vast marshland in which a huge population is stuck ankle- to neck-deep and it is his duty to rescue them. "Our salvation lies in moving people out of agriculture," he...

-The Hindustan Times The audacious ambush and bloody massacre of more than two dozen political leaders and their security guards in Darbha valley of Sukma district in south Chhattisgarh, raises again profoundly important questions about the legitimacy of violence as an instrument to battle injustice and oppression. Resistance to injustice is widely endorsed as the highest human duty in most cultures, but the debate is about the legitimacy of deploying violence in...

-Frontline Despite the negative observations and criticisms, there is a strong case for MGNREGS works to be continued even in States with high per capita incomes. Hisar and Fatehabad: CONTRARY to general opinion, demand for work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is high in Haryana. Contrary also to the views in recent discussion papers, one of them commissioned by the Commission for Agricultural Cost and Prices...