As profits rise in developed and developing countries and the share of wages in value added falls, the clamour for reducing corporate tax rates only increases. Governments are warned of the danger of being shunned by FDI or of seeing their own capital migrate out in search of relative tax havens. The ''race to the bottom'' that this could set off, argue C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, would only increase the inequalising tendencies inherent in contemporary capitalism.

Negating the impact of the current inflationary episode in India on the poor requires both the ensuring of appropriate supplies through imports, and a transfer of purchasing power from the profit earners to the workers. Hence, even if augmentation of supplies through resorting to imports, as the government is doing now in the case of foodgrains, succeeds in ending inflation, there is still the need to put additional purchasing power in the hands of the poor so that they regain their earlier real income. The author argues that the basic problem with the 2007-08 budget is that it is oblivious of these social demands of a situation of profit inflation.

An argument commonly heard is that the Central government is stretched for resources despite its best efforts, necessitating a greater role for the private sector and the state governments. This paper argues that the evidence does not validate that position. A more appropriate tax policy relating to dividends and capital gains would alone yield substantial revenues for the government. Therefore, much more can and needs to be done to mobilise resources for a greater role for the Centre in development.

The increase in the scale of social ''bribes'' which governments have to offer capitalists in order to elicit investment from them is an important feature of neo-liberalism. Currently, the Indian nation state as well as its different state governments are experiencing this. Because of its impact on state finances, this has crucial implications for the poor and the working masses.

The declared aims of the Planning Commission's Approach to the XIth Plan, all of which require substantially increased public expenditure in physical infrastructure and social sectors, simply cannot be met within the confines of a restrictive fiscal policy stance. The need to rethink policies of resource generation and financial regulation is therefore urgent. In this context, this paper, presented to the National Commission on Enterprises in the Informal Sector, seeks to examine the effects of the three perceptions underlying the prevailing fiscal conservatism, questions their validity and offers some alternatives for mobilising resources for development.

In spite of large positive externalities associated with health spending, in India it is until now largely privately financed. The relatively low spending by the government, a trend aggravated during the liberalisation era, implies that health infrastructure and services will be underprovided and will simultaneously deny access to the poor. This study seeks to examine the actual pattern of government spending on health and related areas (particularly, family welfare and child development) by both central and state governments.

The inadequate level of public health spending, which has been a constant and unfortunate feature of Indian development in the past half century, has deteriorated further. If India is to achieve even a small part of the potential that our leaders are so proud of declaring, government health expenditure has to be substantially increased from the current abysmally low levels.

In this paper, the authors look at the specific proposals made in the Planning Commission's Approach Paper to the Eleventh Plan in the areas of control over and loss of land, employment generation, agriculture and food security, health and education. The paper questions the underlying perception that creating a profitable environment for private sector functioning will be enough to fulfil most social goals, and no particular planning strategy is required for this.

This background note prepared on behalf of the Kerala State Planning Board by Prabhat Patnaik, the Vice-Chairman of the Board, discusses the various reservations of the Board on the Approach Paper to the Eleventh Five Year Plan released by the Planning Commission. The paper also makes a number of initial proposals towards advancing the regional consultations to be carried out by the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission has just released its Approach to the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, which is entitled ''Towards faster and more inclusive growth''. It is argued in this paper that the macroeconomic presumptions of the approach are faulty and unlikely to generate anything resembling more inclusive growth.

One of the lesser known large dams in the Narmada valley, the Maheshwar Project, which is the first privatised hydel project in India, shows all the signs of another Enron-type fiasco in the making. But, apart from the flaws on technical and financial grounds, this time there is also added devastation produced by large scale displacement and completely inadequate rehabilitation.

The present problem of inflation is not one of excess demand in all cases, but of manipulated shortages and cost-driven inflation. Using imports to exorcise such inflation would only serve to increase dependence on foreign finance and also lead to a worsening of the agrarian crisis.

The lack of provision of basic social security for the vast bulk of workers in India is one of the more depressing features of Indian society. This is sought to be corrected in the recent recommendations of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector. In this paper, the authors consider the main proposals in the Report and the associated legislation that will be required, and argue that this must become a priority issue for the government.

In recent years, the media has created a lot of hype about the UPA government's budgets, stating that these are examples of ''reforms with human face''. This government assumed power on May 22, 2004, with the support of the Left parties, and was expected to bring about major changes in the economic policies in favour of the poor. The question which naturally arises is whether these expectations are fulfilled or whether this government too is framing policies favourable to the richer segments of the population. This paper attempts to find an answer to this question by analyzing the recent budget and the two previous ones presented by Mr. P Chidambaram, the Finance Minister.

The increase in central government tax revenues has been described as a victory for the Laffer Curve in India. This article examines the real reasons behind the recent increase in the tax-GDP ratio, in particular, the change in income distribution and the higher profitability of companies.

The Budget reveals not only a complex political balancing act, but also a basic tension between sticking to a neo-liberal economic strategy and meeting the economic expectations of the mass of people, generated by the government's own promises.