The newly released World Bank report has estimated that the number of extremely poor people globally went up by nearly 71 million in the year 2020 as compared to 2019 — a 11 percent increase. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of poor swelled by around 56 million in India. It means that about 79 percent of the total people globally who slipped into poverty during the first year of...

-Business Standard "The global goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 is likely to be missed: by then, about 600 million people will remain in abject poverty. A major course correction is needed," Indermit Gill said. About 56 million Indians may have plunged into extreme poverty in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, increasing the global tally by 71 million and making it the worst year for poverty reduction since World...

-Newsclick.in Privatisation of grain procurement and cap on procurement subsidies are among the ideas being floated. Amid a slew of worrying news on the food grain front, the Narendra Modi-led government not only appears to be strangely cool, but it is also throwing up bizarre proposals to change the whole procurement-distribution system. This could be the famous ‘using a crisis as an opportunity’ mode of thinking that has led to catastrophic effects...

-The Hindu The Census in India is about many things — it must be made a priority and used to affirm a sense of comradeship Among the best uses of a census anywhere in the world was perhaps what happened in the United States when, in 1850 and 1860, anti-slavery campaigners used numbers from two consecutive national censuses to build support for the abolition of slavery. They showed the number of enslaved...

-Newsclick.in Kicking off a 3-day nationwide campaign on Wednesday, NREGA Sangharsh Morcha cited “derisively low budget allocation” and “long delays in wage payments” as reasons for turning many rural workers away from the employment guarantee scheme. New Delhi: Days after the Centre cited the drop in demand for work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to suggest stability in the labour market, rural workers and social activists, as...