-Economic and Political Weekly   A report on the 2013 deliberation of the Kolkata Group at its 10th workshop which focused on healthcare, the status of women and social justice in India. A K Shiva Kumar (akshivakumar@gmail.com) is convener of the Kolkata Group workshops which are organised by Pratichi (India) Trust, the Harvard Global Equity Initiative and UNICEF India. At the 10th annual Kolkata Group workshop in February this year, 40 policymakers, development practitioners,...

Argumentative Indians are at it again! After sparring over the poverty line and the actual number of poor, India's renowned economists have fired up a fresh debate over the extent of malnutrition. In the earlier debate, the Planning Commission ‘reduced' poverty on paper disregarding NSSO and official committees, including the NCEUS, which determined that 77% Indians survived on less than Rs 20 a day. Columbia university economist Arvind Panagariya has...

-The United Nations United Nations independent experts today called on countries to ensure the post-2015 development agenda focuses on equality, social protection and accountability, noting that one billion people around the world are still living in poverty. "The rise of inequality has severely undermined the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs," the independent experts said in their message to Member States which will meet this week in New York to...

-The Hindu     Aim is to help urban poor go to health facilities after working hours To help urban poor go to health facilities after working hours, urban primary health centres, planned under the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), will function from noon to 8 p.m. Out-patient departments at standard health facilities worked only in the morning; when patients had to go to work, visiting a doctor or hospital would mean losing a...

-Frontline Corruption tends to be greater in periods when there is a state-engineered redistribution of wealth in favour of a few at the explicit or implicit expense of the many. Liberalisation is one such period. IT cannot be verified and may not be true. But, the view that the record of graft and corruption during the two-term, nine-year rule of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is the worst in India's post-Independence...