-The Telegraph The Economic Survey — prepared by Kaushik Basu, chief economic adviser to the finance ministry — has some gratuitous advice for politicians like Mamata Banerjee who announced earlier this week plans to amend state legislation that will require co-operative banks to take government permission before seizing mortgaged property while trying to foreclose loans given to defaulting farmers. “The state provides the laws and enforcement to enable people to sign contracts,”...

-PTI Budget allocation for central government hospitals in the capital has been increased for the coming fiscal, with AIIMS getting Rs 1,124 crore which is nearly 6% more as compared to the last year's Rs 1,062.35 crore. This is followed by the Safdarjung Hospital which will receive Rs 467.55 crore this year, which is 27% more in comparison to the allocation of Rs 366.88 crore last year. The next in the row of...

-PTI The UIDAI's Aadhaar project for providing unique identity numbers to residents, has huge potential to improve the delivery of social sector schemes like rural employment guarantee, the Economic Survey 2011-12 said. "Aadhaar has huge potential for improving operations and delivery of services," the survey said. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), attached to the Planning Commission, is engaged in providing residents in the country a Unique Identification number (called Aadhaar) linked...

-PTI The Delhi high court on Wednesday asked the central government to respond to a plea for amendment to the Right To education (RTE) Act to make it recognize homebased studies and alternate schooling too as education, besides the one acquired through formal schooling. A division bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw asked the central government's standing counsel Jatan Singh to file the response...

Most of us don’t even get a single shot at making history — Manmohan Singh has a second chance The fiscal deficit is an outcome, not a policy. It is the net resolution of the policies pertaining to taxes and expenditure. It is worth analysing separately the two components of the deficit. The table reports the results of relating the tax and expenditure share of GDP to per capita income for...