-Livemint.com It is important to give preference to those approaches that help the poor the most for every rupee spent, no matter how they are labelled Sometimes in life, it is clear that the direct approach isn’t the best one. This is true in many areas, even when it comes to policymaking. Take, as an example, the area of extreme poverty. It seems logical, at first, that the most effective response should...

-The Hindu Why measuring inequality is not the same as measuring changes in the level of poverty in India In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion on increasing inequality within several countries of the world, including India, particularly after the publication of Thomas Piketty’s book on inequality. It is true that rising inequality has adverse economic and social consequences. The Gini coefficient or other measures of inequality are being...

-The Indian Express There are grand promises. But the actual increases in budgetary outlays are shockingly low. This government is especially good at optics, at managing public perceptions to persuade people that it is working for them, rather than doing so. So it is no surprise that Arun Jaitley’s pre-election budget speech went on about how much his government cares for the people, the poor, for farmers, for women, for people...

-The Financial Express The NSSO 70th round survey estimates there are 156 million rural households in India, of which 57.8% are agricultural. Average monthly expenditure on crop production by cultivating agricultural households during July 2012-June 2013 was Rs 2,192. Of this, 24% is spent on fertiliser and manure. Using survey results, rough calculations suggest agricultural households’ spend on fertiliser/manure would be in the range of Rs 78,000-1,20,000 crore in next cropping...

-The Financial Express Over 14 crore households who cultivate on land owned by others under a formal lease agreement or even under a temporary arrangement overseen by the gram panchayats or other official functionaries may soon start getting assorted sops doled out to “farmers” by the government just as their land-owing counterparts do. According to official sources, the definition of farmer will be changed via a gazzette notification to include cultivators...