-The Business Standard Peg decline at 7.8 percentage points between 2009-10 and 2011-12 The poverty rate has declined by 7.8 percentage points in two years, according to the latest estimates by the Planning Commission. If 29.8 per cent of the population was poor in 2009-10, the figure came down to 22 per cent in 2011-12. The estimates are based on the recently-released report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) for 2011-12. This...

-The New Indian Express Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has emerged among the strongest voices against the Food Security Bill, which is being pushed by the UPA government. She recently wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to exempt Tamil Nadu from the implementation of the ordinance that brought the Food Security Bill into force. Apart from the political overtones that such a request might be seen to have,...

-The New York Times Blog The right to food is finally becoming a lively political issue in India. Aware of the forthcoming national elections in 2014, political parties are competing to demonstrate - or at least proclaim - their commitment to food security. In a country where endemic undernutrition has been accepted for too long as natural, this is a breakthrough of sorts. The rhetoric, however, is not always matched by understanding...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Over half of India's urban residents can be called poor. The housing ministry has moved a cabinet note that has classified nearly 52 per cent of town and city dwellers as poor after a socio-economic caste census that is "99 per cent" complete. The ministry has also dropped a criterion from the list of parameters an expert committee had suggested to automatically count in and count out households from...

-The Hindu Department has received 19,000 applications for new cards Kolar (Karnataka): Kolar district has 3,30,990 families eligible for ration cards but the number of ration cards issued in the district stands at 3,58,284 - a clear pointer to the large number of bogus cards under the Public Distribution System. This came to light at a review meeting chaired by Minister of State for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Dinesh Gundu Rao...