In a move that could end a face-off within the government on the proposed food security Bill, the food ministry has decided to make everyone, except the so-called creamy layer, eligible for receiving state-subsidized foodgrains. Those who can afford to pay market prices will be kept out of the intended list of beneficiaries through the introduction of the exclusion criteria in the Bill, which will also seek to allocate foodgrains on...

-Economic and Political Weekly Yojana Bhavan never seems to know how to count India’s poor That the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government can on occasion after occasion mishandle a situation and also show insensitivity has been in evidence once again in its handling of the poverty figures estimated from the 66th (2009-10) round of the National Sample Survey (NSS). Although the Planning Commission’s estimates, as measured by the Tendulkar methodology, declined sharply...

It is worrying that the Tendulkar method, chosen by the Planning Commission to calculate the poverty line in its latest figures, underestimates the levels of poverty while overestimating poverty reduction. The figures show that 29.8% or 360 million Indians were poor in 2009-10 as compared to 37.2% or 400 million in 2004-05. A poor person has been defined as one who spends R28 per day in urban areas and R22.5...

The sharp drop in poverty estimates in the latest count has been attributed largely to the high growth over 2004-2010, but disaggregated state-level data does not seem to provide conclusive evidence. The national poverty count dropped to 29.8% in 2009-10 from 37.2% in 2004-05, but in states such as Bihar, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and even Punjab the decline was much less even though they reported a visible improvement in economic growth...

The Budget provides proof of the United Progressive Alliance government having forgotten the importance of its own “flagship schemes”. BUDGET 2012-13 provides conclusive proof that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has lost its way. It has managed the remarkable feat of upsetting almost everyone and making no one happy. The Budget is highly regressive in both taxation and spending terms and will raise prices of essentials, so aam aurat and...