We have five million children in the labour market, say official figures. Their actual numbers may be four times as many. As a nation, we have failed each one of them…   Millions of our children still labour today, in factories, farms, kilns, mines, homes and city waste dumps, when they should be in school or in a playground. We profoundly fail these children, collectively depriving them of education, play, rest, healthy...

-IBNS   A group of about 35 women economists from different countries of Europe, UK, US, Australia and India, have written an open letter to Prime Ministers and Presidents of South Asian nations, including India, which are facing acute sanitation crisis. From India, Jayati Ghosh, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Bina Agarwal, Director, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University and Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Chairperson Board of Governors, Indian...

The growing public support for Anna Hazare-style protests, led by unelected campaigners, bode ill for Indian democracy, distinguished academic and Labour Peer Bhikhu Parekh warned while delivering the 2011 Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture here on Monday. The Indian democracy, he said, was in danger of losing legitimacy if elected politicians failed to meet public expectations and people, in frustration, started mobilising around “leaders” who had no democratic mandate but could have...

An unprecedented economic Growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...

-The Indian Express   Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao on Tuesday cautioned that policies — the significant increase in rural wages triggered by the MGNREGS and inflationary implications of the proposed Food Security Bill — aimed at inclusive Growth can stoke inflationary pressures at any rate in the short-term. “The need for making Growth inclusive is incontestable, but it is important to recognise that policies aimed at inclusion can stoke inflationary...