As the country celebrates 68th anniversary of her independence this year, recent data from the Census 2011 reveals that the population of homeless declined by 8.8% between 2001 and 2011 to reach 17.7 lakhs. This means that 4.5 lakh households (of average household size 3.9) still do not have any shelter to sleep safely. Although the percentage share of homeless in total population is miniscule (i.e. 0.15%), in absolute numbers...
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Still smug about the high growth years? -Ashoak Upadhyay
-The Hindu Business Line Drop the euphoria for a moment - a third of India is seriously poor. And urban poverty has risen sharply The latest report on the number of poor Indians shows a third of the population living below the recalibrated poverty lines. C Rangarajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and former chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, was asked to look into the matter...
More »Reinforcing the welfare agenda -Harsh Mander
-Live Mint Voters who gave the Congress its worst drubbing did not reject its welfare agenda, but its performance There are many who interpret the emphatic rejection of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the significant endorsement of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the elections of 2014 as a mandate to end the architecture of rights-based legislation for social and economic welfare constructed during the 10-year UPA regime. Commentators opposed...
More »New mission to replace JNNURM
-The Hindu Government plans to initiate 100 smart cities It's curtains for the UPA government's flagship programme, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The new Union Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister (HUPA), M. Venkaiah Naidu, who assumed office on Wednesday, said a new mission would be launched soon in place of JNNURM. The new mission would focus on the modern concept for cities based on GIS-based planning...
More »New vote bank, traditional politics-Puja Mehra and Sowmiya Ashok
-The Hindu While migrant labourers see price rise as their primary concern, they still rate caste and religion as determining factors in their voting decision After the rural poor, farmers and the urban middle class, political parties are now seeking to make a vote bank out of migrant manufacturing labourers. The Bharatiya Janata Party's election manifesto promises the concept of "Industry Family" between workers and factory owners, but does not elaborate on...
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