While some may view the food security Bill as the instrument of combating poverty, this distinction belongs to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the flagship anti-poverty programme of the United Progressive Alliance government. The proponents of the food security Bill at the National Advisory Council have promoted it as the instrument of fighting widespread and rising hunger, instead. But what is the empirical basis of the claims of widespread and...

U.P.'s GDP grew at 7.28 per cent in the past five years, but the State ranks low in virtually every area of socio-economic development. IF statistics on gross domestic product (GDP) are the only criteria to evaluate the performance of a government, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in Uttar Pradesh will have to be rated as one with highly impressive credentials. For, India's most populous State has recorded a...

-BBC   Inequality in earnings has doubled in India over the past two decades, a new report says, making it one of the worst performers among emerging economies. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says the top 10% of wage-earners make 12 times more than the bottom 10%, compared to six times 20 years ago. The OECD says India has the highest number of poor in the world. Some 42% of its 1.21...

Karnataka, India’s IT success story and its most preferred destination for foreign investment, boasts of the country’s highest per capita income. Its economic indicators are nothing short of superlative and yet the South Indian State accounts for thousands of child deaths due to malnutrition. A recent report shows that despite high SGDP growth and heightened economic activity, Karnataka fares poorly in hunger index and child malnutrition. A recent report by news...

While higher income levels mean countries have more money to improve women's health, ultimately it comes down to how governments decide to spend the money We know that economic growth and human development do not always go hand in hand, as evidenced by the very different position of countries in per capita GDP rankings compared with human development rankings. But the link between health conditions and economic growth is usually thought...