AFTER MORE than a year’s debate on enumerating caste in Census 2011, it was finally decided in a Cabinet meeting on 19 May that all Indians would be asked their caste and religion along with their economic status. The caste census will be conducted as part of the ‘below poverty line’ (BPL) survey, to be carried out by the Ministries of Rural Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation along...

The steadily rising rate of economic growth in India has recently been around 8 percent per year (it is expected to be 9 percent this year), and there is much speculation about whether and when India may catch up with and surpass China’s over 10 percent growth rate. Despite the evident excitement that this subject seems to cause in India and abroad, it is surely rather silly to be obsessed...

Census will be based on automatic exclusion and inclusion criteria The Below the Poverty Line (BPL) census, approved by the Union Cabinet on Thursday, will be an exercise in identifying households that will fit the bill within the poverty cap of 46 per cent of the rural population of India. The identification of the 46 per cent poverty cap, estimated by the Planning Commission, will be done through a set of automatic...

Doubts are emerging over whether cash transfers, designed to strengthen local markets, also empower women and change gender roles in emergencies. "Gender relations are quite complex and you cannot assume US$50 is going to change that," Sarah Bailey, research officer at the Humanitarian Policy Group, told IRIN. "You cannot assume targeting women necessarily leads to their empowerment or promotes gender equality." According to a joint report by Oxfam Great Britain and Concern...

Reconsidering its earlier decision, the United Progressive Alliance government is now contemplating not to give direct inclusion to all members of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in the proposed BPL list if one goes by the modalities being laid out for conducting the census. Their inclusion will now be based on their ranking obtained from the number of deprivation indicators they satisfy. Similarly, minorities too don't get the same...