Government undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor households. As a consequence, the BPL survey that was to...

They played to the gallery, grabbing every opportunity to put Hazare's agitation centre stage. THE movement against corruption led by Anna Hazare had the media completely on its side. The agitation, which began with Hazare announcing that he would begin an indefinite hunger strike on April 5 demanding the passage of a people-inspired Lokpal Bill, ended on April 9. The five days of the agitation saw the mass media, especially...

Playing the Dalit card, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday criticised the Centre, the Congress and civil society for not including any SC member in the Jan Lokpal Bill drafting committee. At a hurriedly convened press conference here, Ms. Mayawati invoked Dr. Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar and his contribution to the socio-economic uplift of the downtrodden sections to drive home her point. Even after 63 years of independence, was not a...

In less than a fortnight of its formation, the joint committee for drafting the Lokpal Bill is falling apart. Even as civil society representatives Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan are battling attacks on their integrity, another civil society leading light, Justice N Santosh Hegde, is thinking of quitting the panel. Stung by Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh's references to his ineffectuality in dealing with corruption in Karnataka, Hegde, who is the...

The first results of Census 2011 put India's population at 1,210 million, indicating a demographic transition. CENSUS 2011 is the 15th one undertaken in India since 1872 and the seventh after the country attained Independence. While there have been stray historical references to population counts of one kind or another in earlier periods over much smaller territories within the territory that constitutes present-day India, the consensus view is that the...