Soon, the National Food Security Act  will become law. The ruling United Progressive Alliance flagship social security programme of providing every Below the Poverty Line (BPL) family with 25 kg of rice or wheat at Rs 3 per kg per month is a welcome step to alleviate some of the human trauma that haunts the poor in our country. The government also hopes that the Act will secure freedom from...

A pilot project on refining methods of counting the poor is attractive at a time when entitlement to welfare schemes is hotly debated Targeted approaches to delivering food and other goods often attract criticism from different quarters. Exclusion of deserving individuals and inclusion of those who are better off have marred programmes such as the Public Distribution System (PDS), so much so that universalization has been recommended as a panacea to...

Most discussions on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) have focused on one of few things, the leakages in the implementation of the scheme, the inadequate number of jobs created, and some even talk of how NREGA has resulted in food inflation going up in various districts as well as increasing mechanisation due to unavailability of farm labour. It is, of course, true that you can’t have food inflation...

Intensifying investments in clean energy can accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the eight globally-agreed targets to slash poverty by 2015, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says in a new publication. A “green economy” is one that “not only improves human well-being and lessens inequality but also reduces environmental risks and ecological scarcities,” the brief says, underscoring its importance in realizing the MDGs. In 2008 amidst the...

RAM KARUTURI, the world’s largest rose grower, calls it a situation that needs immediate intervention. Else, he is sure the rush of Indians to Africa will ebb to a trickle, which, in turn, could have serious implications as ethnic tensions with the locals are slowly, but steadily, rising in some parts of the continent. The hub of the crisis is Gambela, one of Ethiopia’s nine states, for long starved of investment....