-Down to Earth Government claims a huge drop in poverty numbers but critical indicators-health, malnutrition and wages-continue to be grim. So how did the poor fare better? After a long, long time there was good news to splash as media led with the report of a record 21.9 per cent drop in poverty levels. The July 24 newspaper headlines were celebratory as they reported the Planning Commission's findings that poverty rates...
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Why are midday meals not up to the mark: High Court -Aneesha Mathur
-The Indian Express New Delhi: Taking note of a report published in Newsline on Wednesday, the Delhi High Court has asked the Delhi government and the three civic agencies to look into the issue of why the midday meals supplied to students in schools run by the three civic agencies of the capital are not up to the prescribed standards. The High Court bench of Acting Chief Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad and...
More »A misnomer called food security -Charan Singh and Arvind Virmani
-The Indian Express The proposed bill makes false promises. The need is to directly address problems of drinking water availability, sanitation, maternal health and childcare The Food Security Bill (2013, FSB) promulgated recently by an ordinance is expected to be debated in Parliament soon. The intention behind the FSB is noble, to eradicate hunger from the country, but the means adopted need serious reconsideration. FSB, under the targeted public distribution system (TPDS),...
More »Bathrooms in rural areas likely to be made mandatory soon
-The Hindu Bijapur (Karnataka): Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister H.K. Patil has said that the State government was contemplating a policy to ensure the construction of bathrooms along with toilets in rural areas. Addressing presspersons here on Sunday, he said that to enhance the living standards of rural people, it was essential to provide these basic facilities. Claiming that bathrooms, like toilets, were also equally important for the development of the rural...
More »Prof. Amartya Sen, co-author of the book 'An Uncertain Glory: India And Its Contradictions' interviewed by Praveen Dass
-The Times of India Amartya Sen is angry, and clearly getting impatient . Having urged Indian policymakers over decades to do more to combat poverty, hunger and illiteracy , the economist is now taking direct aim at what he feels is our continuing apathy as a nation towards the underprivileged. But in his own way - less the firebrand rhetorician and more the gentle but firm academic don that he is....
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