Speculation has it that Congress President Sonia Gandhi will likely charm Trinamool firebrand Mamata Banerjee into supporting the UPA’s candidate for the next president. And as of now, our dear Pranabda remains a frontrunner for Raisina Hills. Read more

Last week, the government released a set of statistics that have since caused much anxiety over where the Indian economy is headed to. Read more

One way of looking at the latest poverty estimates from the government is that the number of poor saw the biggest drop, falling by more than 7 percentage points between 2004-05 and 2009-10. Read more

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen thinks there isn’t enough clarity on economics in India. The Indian government and economists who influence policy making are oriented toward growth and lack in paying attention to expanding human capabilities such as food security, access to education and healthcare etc. Read more

In a May 31 posting on this blog, I had argued how and why the economic deceleration that we were beginning to see could get worse. I had said we would be lucky if we notched up 8% growth this year. Until then the government and several other agencies were sticking to a 9% forecast. I would have loved to be proved wrong. But the slowdown is indeed getting worse. Read more