-IANS Those who cherish India's constitutional values will find Gujarat Chief Minister Narenda Modi's boast to build a state of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (India's first home minister and deputy prime minister) taller than the Statue of Liberty rather chilling. By prizing nationalism over individual freedom, Modi may have once again revealed his illiberal nature. People who dislike this aspect of him, Leftists mainly, give vent to their disapproval by dismissing Modi's development...

-Live Mint The fundamental pathology of Indian policy is the overwhelming preference for subsidies over public goods One useful way to understand a fundamental flaw in policymaking in India since 2004 is to ask a rhetorical question: why is the ruling United Progressive Alliance aggressively pushing for a law guaranteeing the right to food rather than one for the right to clean drinking water? Take a look at the numbers. A February...

-The Hindu     In spite of the rosy picture painted by the World Bank, the prospect of eliminating extreme poverty remains distant In a protracted period of gloom and persistent recession with feeble signs of recovery in a large part of the developed world, the World Bank, Brookings Institution and others can be forgiven for their euphoria over the accomplishment of a key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) - of halving extreme poverty in...

-The Hindu Developing and emerging economies may not exactly be dazzling in the current overall grim global economic climate of joblessness and sluggish growth. But the region has registered rising employment and narrowing income inequalities, relative to their rich counterparts, since the 2007-08 meltdown, says the International Labour Organisation's World of Work Report 2013. The backbone of this promising story are the Middle Income groups in these countries, which have...

-The Hindu Malnutrition is responsible for nearly 45 per cent of deaths in children under-five, according to new research report published as part of The Lancet Series on maternal and child nutrition. The research shows that malnutrition is responsible for around 3.1 million deaths in children under five annually. Results estimate that stunting (reduced growth) affected at least 165 million children worldwide in 2011 while at least 52 million children were affected...