-Live Mint The solutions to India’s growth problems require a more holistic approach Whether rightly or wrongly, there is a growing critique of India’s current development strategy: of a top-down, trickle-down theory that rides on an extraordinary growth momentum. They are disparate, but when the dots are connected they do present a coherent reminder that this strategy may not be the best and, worse, it is not sustainable. To a large extent this...

-CNN-IBN Inside the crumbling housing estates of Shivaji Enclave, amid the boys playing cricket and housewives chatting from their balconies, winding staircases lead to places where lies a darker side to India's economic boom. Three months ago, police rescued Theresa Kerketa from one of these tiny two-roomed flats. For four years, she was kept here by a placement agency for domestic maids, in between stints as a virtual slave to Delhi's...

-Outlook Its ploy of Aadhar-hinged cash transfer may have won the Congress political points, but will it really be a game-changer?   State-Wise     40% of the 22 crore Aadhar numbers are in Andhra Pradesh (4.7 crore) and Maharashtra (4 crore)     20% is what the two politically sensitive, Congress-ruled states account for of the 51 districts where DCT will be rolled out     55 lakh Aadhar numbers in TMC-run West Bengal. BJP-ruled Gujarat (57...

-Live Mint Charges that NREGA has pushed up agricultural wages fails to account for changing productivity In the debate over the costs and benefits of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), one of the most controversial and unsettled issues is its effect on agricultural labour market. Last year, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar even went to the extent of recommending a 50% subsidy to farmers in wage costs due...

-The Economic Times Pan Singh Tomar, the legendary steeplechase athlete-turned-dacoit, earned an annual salary of 120 or thereabouts from the Indian Army, where he served as a hawildar in the 1950s. These days, his great grandson roams around their ancestral village dispensing similar amounts to those at the bottom of the Indian pyramid. If Tomar Sr had resorted to guns for the latter part of his life, Anuj Singh Tomar too has...