At least two cases of hunger deaths have been reported from Jabalpur district of MP and Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan in the past few weeks. The two states are run by different political parties-- the BJP and the Congress-- but there is quite a lot common in the victims’ circumstances. Both families were among the poorest in their villages but were not included in the BPL list and both the...
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The gap widens by Shailaja Chandra
Several recent reports put India at the bottom when it comes to gender equality. It is time for a clearly-spelt new policy on women and development. SHAILAJA CHANDRA “By and large the attitude of a man towards his wife is possibly worse than his attitude towards his buffalo.”--Colin Gonzalves, Human Rights Lawyer The World Economic Forum, in a report titled the Global Gender Gap 2009, has quantified the magnitude of gender-based...
More »The unsettled debate on Indian poverty by R Ramakumar
The Tendulkar Committee has pitched for a policy position that is stranded between the harsh realities of poverty and a fiscally conservative neo-liberal framework. The debate on the extent of poverty in India has been a matter of global interest in the recent years. The primary reason for the global interest in the debate is that the levels of poverty in India and China have come to exert significant influence...
More »The Tendulkar Report: A Small Step Forward by R Ramakumar
Poverty is a multi-dimensional concept. Official statistics in India have always referred, arguably narrowly, to only income poverty (using the proxy measure of consumption expenditure from the NSSO surveys).The Suresh Tendulkar Committee report submitted to the Planning Commission is the latest input to the “Great Indian Poverty Debate”. While the increase in the number of poor households, as suggested by the Tendulkar Committee, may indeed help expand the coverage of...
More »CAG faults implementation of maternity benefit scheme by Aarti Dhar
Many did not use health centres for institutional deliveries The Mission’s goal is to achieve 100 per cent institutional deliveries by 2012 Long term targets were not prescribed by 17 States The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has criticised the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) for “hampering” the smooth implementation of the Janani Suraksha Yojana – maternity benefit scheme — by delays and irregularities in the payment of incentives. In its latest...
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