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Beggars do not make good stories. They are not consumers who can pay for or buy news. They are mostly peripatetic, therefore non-voters. They do not qualify for Aadhaar card, hence for cash dole. No wonder, the mention of beggars in the recently submitted 12th Five-year Plan Document did not find many takers in the Indian media. Curious as it may seem to many of us, excited as normally we are by the mention of the richest Indians in the global top 20 list, that the Plan document cared to ask for a national policy on beggars and a model central law on begging.

LUCKNOW: Following the initiative from Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the UP Government will be hosting the international level ‘Partnership Summit – 2013’ at the city of Taj Mahal, Agra from January 27 to 29 2013.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The strike launched by pro-Left service organisations in support of their demand to scrap the contributory pension scheme to be introduced from April 1, 2013, has been called off to the palpable relief of one and all. But the manner in which the Government headed by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy tackled the strike cannot but cause utmost concern.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) returned to the US dollar bond market yesterday with the pricing of a $1 billion 7-year global benchmark bond issue. The proceeds of the bond will be part of the bank’s ordinary capital resources and used in its non-concessional operations.

Four years after the onset of the global financial crisis, the world economy remains fragile and growth in high-income countries is weak. Developing countries need to focus on raising the growth potential of their economies, while strengthening buffers to deal with risks from the Euro Area and fiscal policy in the United States, says the World Bank in the newly-released Global Economic Prospects (GEP) report.

Business competitiveness and export performance are increasingly tied to countries’ integration into global production chains and a willingness to open markets to wider imports, according to preliminary international trade data released today by the OECD and the WTO.

With global recovery from the four-year old financial crisis still fragile and uncertain, and the environment volatile, the World Bank has urged developing countries to “rebuild buffers and pursue cautious macro-economic policies” over the next few years. Its Global Economic Prospects (GEP) Report on January 15, projects India’s growth at 5.1 per cent in current fiscal ending March, and 6.1 percent in fiscal 2014 and 6.8 percent in 2015.

An insight into how politics is conducted nowadays is available from West Bengal’s seamless transition from the “cold horror” of the Nandigram incident, in the words of the then governor, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, to the “goondaism” of the present period, to quote the present occupant of Raj Bhavan, M.K. Narayanan.

Will the past few years’ relative stability in the Jammu and Kashmir situation prove lasting or will the state again get destabilised, even if partially, in the foreseeable future? An answer to the question can be attempted by analysing the possible implications of the happenings that have lately been taking place in the state. First, the cross LoC infiltrations.

Have you ever felt that there are too few banks around for meeting the banking requirements? Most people will not have. But policy makers, including the Reserve Bank of India, think otherwise. Hence, there is a move afoot to create more banks in India and a new banking licence policy will be announced by the central bank in a couple of weeks.