Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto turned classical capitalism on its head with his trickle-up theory: that if you create wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, it will find its way up. de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, speaks to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk on the need for the poor to be able to participate in the global economy...

The Union budget estimates the nominal rate of growth for the Indian economy to be 12.5 per cent during the current fiscal. While it is impossible to figure out the manner in which this number was arrived at, the government has predicted further that the inflation-adjusted real growth rate for the same year will be eight per cent. Simple arithmetic requires that the difference between the nominal and real growth...

The recent allegations made are uncalled for and can be seen as an attempt by bidders disqualified due to not fulfilling the tender requirements. Companies like Glodyne who have been crying foul did not even have an ISO certification to bid for the project and have failed miserably in states like Bihar to execute projects of nation building NREGA it took on. Other players included TCS and Aditya Birla Group...

Batten down the hatches? Pull out all the stops? It might be difficult to find the cliché that adequately emphasises the urgency with which the government needs to tackle inflation. The worry is not just that May inflation was in double digits (10.16 per cent). It is also a fact that prices of commodities other than food are now beginning to gallop. Inflation in non-food manufactured products (often referred to...

In India, of the total cultivated area of around 140.30 million hectares only 60.86 million is irrigated and remaining 79.44 million hectares is rain-fed. Rain-fed crops account for 48 percent area under food crops and 68 percent of the area under non-food crops. Irrigated land accounts for nearly 55 percent of food production while rain-fed contributes just about 45 percent. Rain-fed farming is risk prone and is characterized by low...