Trying—and failing—to live on the govt’s definition of ‘not poor’ Dietetics Of Poverty     Three cups of tea, adding up to about 150 calories     Two slices of bread (100 calories)     Two pieces of kulcha with chhole (about 425 calories)     Bread and tea hardly contain any nutrients. Milk may provide some calcium.     Near-starvation diets, with hardly any vitamins or minerals, can lead to a breakdown of muscles and weight loss over a...

-The Times of India Faced with a looming embarrassment over the disclosure of irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday sought to play down the findings of the auditor, asserting that his final report would spare the government. Speaking against the backdrop of Opposition's criticism and its demand for a CBI probe into what is being called " Coalgate", Mukherjee said that that the report scooped...

One man’s fiscal problem is another man’s lifeline. Trigger happy bureaucrats and economists may love shooting down subsidies because it bloats the fiscal deficit and burdens the government but the simple fact is that in a one billion strong nation, in which nearly one in every three live below the poverty line, one needs an effective and efficient method through which privileged tax payers can support the poor. Last week, finance...

-PTI Anna Hazare on Sunday returned to his favourite mode of protest -- hunger strike -- in Delhi after his flop show in Mumbai three months ago, this time protesting against the "deaf and dumb" government which is "not doing anything" to protect whistleblowers fighting corruption. Hazare, after his usual visit to Rajghat before any such protest in Delhi, came to the capital's dharna hotspot Jantar Mantar at around 11am to loud...

-The Telegraph The controversial poverty data from the Planning Commission has a message for Mamata Banerjee: the Marxists have brought down the number of destitute in Bengal but much more needs to be done. Latest data suggest that the number of poor has dipped by 7.5 percentage points in Bengal between 2004-05 and 2009-10, which covers the last five years of Left rule in the state. Poverty in urban areas in Bengal came...