The ICDS' plight is symptomatic of the problems plaguing the Union government's flagship schemes for the poor all over the country.   INDIA may be the only country in the world where we describe the ensuring of the basic socio-economic rights of the people in terms of “flagship schemes” that are seen as the benevolent contribution of governments. One problem with this approach is that the delivery of basic services is...

-The Times of India Ahead of the panchayat elections next year Bengal's ruling party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has issued a draconian fiat to its cadres, exhorting them to socially boycott CPM party members. The state government's food and supplies minister Jyotipriya Mullick has asked Trinamool workers not to have any form of personal relations, including marriage, with CPM members and sympathisers. Mullick's bizarre list of 'don'ts' include not mingling with...

The Centre has cited three shortcomings in the implementation of the rural job scheme in Bengal and linked the next instalment of grant to the resolution of the problems. In a letter sent to chief minister Mamata Banerjee yesterday, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has identified the critical areas as low completion rate of works, delay in e-transfer of wages and inadequate action on complaints of irregularities. “Let me make it...

Evidence that poverty has declined since India began to liberalise in the 1980s, that the acceleration in growth to 8-9% range since the mid-2000s has resulted in accelerated poverty reduction and that these trends hold for each broad social group rather than just the aggregate population is as irrefutable as it gets in social sciences. In the accompanying graphic, taken from a recent study by Megha Mukim and the author, show...

-Live Mint At a time when India plans a multi-pronged attack on malnutrition in 200 high-burden districts, it will pay to examine the cracks in state institutions that have led to past failures and can still derail well-intentioned plans. Melghat, a tribal corner in the northeastern fringes of India’s richest state—Maharashtra—is an apt example of almost everything that has gone wrong in India’s response to malnutrition and child deaths. Every 14th child dies...