Free travel for the unemployed.

Rediff reports: Free travel for job interviews .
Mostly all the companies which call you for an interview do reimburse train/air fare. So nothing against it. However this is prone to misuse and can turn out to be a big headache for paying passengers since there is no reimbursement here but a concession in advance. Submitting fake call letters, bribing the booking clerk are all straightforward, well established activities that can be nurtured by such a system. A bit more willingness towards guarding the iterests of paying passengers would surely have ruled out such a system.

This weeks Outlook was an interesting read.

The cover story was excellent.

Vandana Shiva presents a left-wing arguement against the current attempts at helping out the agricultural economy.

Processes that create structural and systemic indebtedness are leaks in the farmers income and livelihood security. Unless these leaks are fixed, more flow of credit will not bail out the farmer and suicides and dispossession will continue. Farmers income is like water in the tank. The new economic policies based on the paradigm of trade liberalization and deregulation of commerce has created a double leak and drain in farmers income.

Gurcharan Das is as eloquent as ever about the need to further economic reform.

In the end, the problems of India’s poor will not be solved by ideology but by good implementation. This needs mental application. We have to focus on the ‘how’, not the ‘what’. It’s easier to abuse India’s bourgeoisie, but more difficult to come up with real answers to real problems.