The Planning Commission's poverty straightjacket is but one of a series of obstacles faced by “aspirants” to the BPL status. Nothing illustrates the absurdity of current food policies more poignantly than the plight of Dablu Singh's family in Latehar district, Jharkhand. About two years ago Dablu, a young Adivasi who survived mainly from casual labour, fell from a roof at work and broke his back. He is paralysed for life and...

Mayawati may have demanded reservation for the Muslims in proportion to their population, but the community has little to cheer about during her five years' rule in Uttar Pradesh. An analysis of Muslims' share in employment and education shows how since 2007 the Muslims have fared worse than dalits in UP on the education front. Demolishing the tall claims of the minority concentration districts' programme to smithereens, the study shows...

The National Food Security Bill, 2011, designed to make access to food a legal right, is the last chance to convert Gandhiji's vision of a hunger-free India into reality. What Mahatma Gandhi said of the role of food in a human being's life in a 1946 speech at Noakhali, now in Bangladesh, remains the most powerful expression of the importance of making access to food a basic human right. Gandhiji also...

-The Business Standard   It appears a committee headed by Planning Commission member Arun Maira examining the case for continued unrestricted foreign direct investment (FDI) in the pharmaceutical industry has opted to oppose the move to change the present regime. The only concession it is willing to make to the health and commerce ministries’ demand that approval of such investment be routed through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board is to ask for...

-The Indian Express   M G Chandrappa, a 60-year-old man from the city, has threatened the district administration that he would commit suicide by jumping into a fire. The farmer has written to the DC and the SP to allow him to die the way he wished to if his problems were not solved. The though of committing suicide occured to him after being cheated and abandoned by his sons. Chandrappa was a...