A sustainable population stabilisation strategy needs to be embedded in a rights-based and gender-sensitive local community needs-led approach. An authoritarian top-down target approach is not the answer. The evolution of government-led population stabilisation efforts in India goes back to the start of the five year development plans in 1951-52. A national programme was launched, which emphasised ‘family planning' to the extent necessary to reduce birth rates to stabilise the population at...

The National Advisory Council likely to approve on Wednesday the draft of the National Food Security Bill. The scheme will be rolled out in the 150 pooRest districts first on the basis of a `notional universalisation.’ Rejecting the recommendation put forward by the EGoM, NAC, at its meeting held on July 1, settled for the distribution of 35 kg of grain, either wheat or rice, to every poor household, but...

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto turned classical capitalism on its head with his trickle-up theory: that if you create wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, it will find its way up. de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, speaks to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk on the need for the poor to be able to participate in the global economy...

Mokhada, Maharashtra: In the last 15-16 years, Jhaluriben Baria has had eight children, two of whom died within five days of their birth. Her youngest child Heera Gopabhai Baria, a boy, is seven months old. The infant is ensconced in a plastic sack strung across two sticks at the entrance of their house in Panchyasan village in Devgadh Baria block of Dahod district, Gujarat. Playing alongside is his sister, Premilaben Baria....

India expects a strong rebound in farm output, which will substantially reduce food price inflation that has soared since last year when the country’s worst drought in 37 years hit crops, the agriculture minister said. This year’s June-September monsoon was 16% below normal last month, but rainfall has revived significantly, calming fears of shortages and higher prices. India also needs to ease tight controls on the sugar sector, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar...