This article documents and then examines the various benefits that, it is claimed, will flow from linking the Unique Identity number with the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It filters the unfounded claims, which arise from a poor understanding of how the PDS and NREGS function, from the genuine ones. On the latter, there are several demanding conditions that need to be met in order...

Pranab Mukherjee, India’s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his “focus” in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high...

The government put out a promised new price index on Friday that will capture changes in prices of goods and services sold at the retail level, helping the government and the central bank get a better grip on policy tools while tackling inflation. Central banks world over rely on retail prices while framing monetary policy, but the Reserve Bank of India has had to consider mostly the wholesale price index...

The International Labour Organisation's Decent Work Research Prize has been awarded to economist Jayati Ghosh and Professor Eve Landau. Dr. Ghosh, who teaches at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, is honoured for her major contributions to the analysis of socio-economic relationships and policy instruments for the advancement of decent work. The prize carries a cash reward of $5,000. Dr. Ghosh has also been invited to make a presentation at a special ceremony to be...

In October last year, the ministry of labour released the results of its first large-scale survey of employment and unemployment in India. The headline number was this: 9.4 per cent of India’s labour force is unemployed. An enviable number by world standards in the middle of recession. Except, of course, that number means precisely nothing. The problem lies in figuring out exactly who counts as unemployed. Given the nature of...