Global economic and financial crisis (2007-2008) coupled with food and fuel crises (2006-2008) has pushed the number of undernourished in the world to 1.02 billion during 2009, This has happened despite international food commodity prices declining from their earlier peaks, finds a newly released report of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO, www.fao.org) titled: The State of Food Insecurity in the World Report 2009: Economic Crises-Impacts and Lessons Learnt....

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that worldwide progress in reducing hunger remains slow. The 2009 global GHI has fallen by only one quarter from the 1990 GHI. Southeast Asia, the Near East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean have reduced hunger significantly since 1990, but the GHI remains distressingly high in South Asia, which has made progress since 1990, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, where progress has...

A series of social audits in NREGS works in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district led to unearthing of humungous irregularities and filing of FIRs against several government and panchayat officials and release of delayed payments worth crores of rupees to the ordinary NREGS workers (See details/ links below). The irregularities included the use of sub-standard material, non-issuance of job cards or post office passbooks and fudging of account books. The audits were organized...

The 2009 Human Development Report (HDR), released simultaneously across the world on Monday, makes a strong case for removing barriers to migration within and across borders, arguing that human movement had brought perceptible all-round benefits and held the potential to improve the lives of millions of poor and low-skilled people. Released jointly here by Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and United Nations Resident Coordinator Patrice Coeur-Bizot, the...

Social audit of rural jobs scheme promises to empower people Social audit of rural jobs scheme promises to empower people with information about how they are being denied the benefits of the schemes meant for them. Something comes between entitlements and beneficiaries when it comes to social sector schemes. It is not necessarily corruption or greed of the providers. It is the ignorance of the beneficiaries. If one were to drive through villages...