It has to be but a means to development, not an end in itself Is India doing marvellously well, or is it failing terribly? Depending on whom you speak to, you could pick up either of those answers with some frequency. One story, very popular among a minority but a large enough group—of Indians who are doing very well (and among the media that cater largely to them)—runs something like...

Poverty lines have been in the news again. This round started when a Planning Commission affidavit to the Supreme Court placing the poverty line at Rs 26 per capita per day (rural), Rs 32 (urban), raised a furore over the use of these to set a cap on the percentage of the population covered by the food security Bill. Since then, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. The latest...

India, China, Brazil and South Africa — the BASIC group of developing countries — on Tuesday sought to bridge their differences and strike a common position ahead of this month's climate change conference in Durban, calling on the West to ensure the extension of the Kyoto Protocol as well as step up financial and technological assistance to developing countries. The Durban conference, they said in a joint statement, “should achieve a...

The tribal people of Chhattisgarh are in an extremely dangerous situation, caught as they are between the state forces and the Maoists. THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Soni Sori, an Adivasi schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, was arrested in Delhi on October 4 on charges of acting as a conduit between the Essar group and the Maoists, the former accused of giving “protection money” to the latter. On October 7, she moved the Delhi High Court to...

Preparing to fulfil one of the main demands of Anna Hazare, the UPA government is in the process of finalising the draft legislation for the Citizens Charter whereby every citizen will have the right to time-bound delivery of goods and services. Titled Citizens Charter for Committed Supply of Goods and Provision of Services by Public Authorities Bill, 2011, the draft legislation provides for multi-layered grievance redressal mechanism from panchayat to national...