Cash transfers, the latest global development fashion, involve several risks in India, not least the risk of forgetting the need for continuing structural change. WHEN I was growing up, several decades ago, middle-class society in India was always a little delayed in catching on to Western fashions whether in music or dress or in other aspects. The past decades of globalisation seemed to have changed all that. Modern communications technology...

The United Nations began laying the groundwork today for a global “social protection floor” that would guarantee food security, health services for all and old-age pensions, with a senior official stressing that all that is lacking is the political will for an initiative needing minimum investment. “Social security is a human right. We’ve forgotten that for a very long time, but roughly only 20 per cent of the global population has...

Abhijeet Sen, Member, Planning Commission talks about the many contentious issues surrounding the Right to Food Act. Does India have enough grain, is it willing to pledge resources, or is it simply anxious to limit its commitments. In fact, why have a Right to Food at all? Rupashree Nanda: Sir, the many drafts of the ambitious legislation "Right To Food", have been disappointing. The Planning Commission note is almost a let...

India has long been simultaneously a country of enormous wealth and desperate poverty. In recent decades, the distance has only grown between those who enjoy living standards comparable to the finest in the world, and the millions left far behind. Even as Indians crowd the lists of the world’s richest dollar billionaires, an estimated 200 million people sleep hungry. Half our children are malnourished and nearly a fifth severely so....

Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac told the Assembly on Wednesday that inclusion of estate workers, the disabled and potters in the scheme for supply of rice at Rs.2 a kg would be considered. Replying to the general discussion on the budget, the Minister said that their inclusion would be subject to condition that the total number of families benefiting from the scheme should not exceed 35 lakh. The budget could not...