The overwhelming evidence from high growth years is that this has been a period of virtually jobless growth, which underlines that there is no substitute for public investment to enhance livelihoods. There is need also to enhance the integrity of India’s tax efforts. All of this suggests there is considerable scope for taxing the rich to ensure investments in the nutrition, health and education of the working poor.

Also, we need to weigh the costs of not making these investments, the enormous costs of hunger, preventable diseases and deaths on the morale and productivity of several hundred million working people and growing children. Read More