The government is spending billions of dollars on welfare schemes, and plans even more this year. But that is news to Poona, whose daughter may soon die from that stain on India's growth story -- malnutrition. Poona, who married at 14 and breaks quarry stones for a living, shielded her daughter's sunken face from a harsh summer sun with her blue sari. She does not know Urmila's weight, but the...

The West Bengal government has decided to distribute land, free of cost, to poor farmers and landless agricultural labourers by buying land from willing landowners, offering them a price which may be higher than the market value. More than two lakh families are likely to be benefited by this step, which is expected to add an important dimension to the sphere of land reforms. Finance Minister Asim Kumar Dasgupta told The...

If recent indicators are anything to go by – the failure to keep food prices down, the proposed national food security Act, the failure to ensure even minimum wages to construction workers at projects for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, to recount a few – it seems the country has given up even the pretence of caring about its children or their crippling, unbudging state of malnutrition. Leaders,...

In an all-too-rare political consensus, India’s Central government and 10 states on Thursday decided to take a call in the following few weeks on reintroducing harsh laws that will severely punish hoarders in order to mitigate food inflation. A core committee comprising representatives of the states and the Centre, and led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, appointed three sub-groups to come up with a solution within 45 days. One of the...

A meticulously researched book by A. Vaidyanathan, Agricultural Growth in India: Role of Technology, Incentives and Institutions, is an illuminating scholarly work. Thinking about it one realizes the dismal and declining state of Indian agriculture and the poor governance at both Central and state government levels that has brought it to this sorry pass. A valuable compendium of data and analysis of Indian agriculture since Independence, it is a valuable...