The word ‘hunger’ does not appear in the 12th Plan Approach Paper even once, whereas according to the latest Global Hunger Index Report, India continues to be in the category of those nations where hunger is ‘alarming’. What is worse, India is one of the three countries where the hunger index between 1996 and 2011 has gone up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries...

To control inflation and ensure long-term economic growth, India needs to harness the creativity of the large number of its farmers and entrepreneurs, especially in rural areas. The latest WPI inflation data show primary articles inflation in double digit, driven mainly by food inflation which remains stubbornly high at over 9 per cent. The high food prices are the result of structural factors with shortages getting aggravated as demand continues to outstrip...

-The Economist   The world’s population will reach 7 billion at the end of October. Don’t panic IN 1950 the whole population of the earth—2.5 billion—could have squeezed, shoulder to shoulder, onto the Isle of Wight, a 381-square-kilometre rock off southern England. By 1968 John Brunner, a British novelist, observed that the earth’s people—by then 3.5 billion—would have required the Isle of Man, 572 square kilometres in the Irish Sea, for its standing...

When put in charge, women in India are better than men at providing clean water and adequate sanitation for their communities. And despite the gains women have made in the developed world, they’re still doing about as much of the housework and childcare as women in India. The World Bank’s recently released 2012 World Development Report on gender equality and development shows progress in some areas, while in others gaps in...

Pawar announces mega plans for mechanisation in 12th Plan Faced with farm labour shortage following the introduction of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday announced mega plans for mechanisation in the 12th Five-Year Plan. “With the successful implementation of the MGNREGS and other anti-poverty programmes, there is now pressure on the availability of farm labour,” Mr. Pawar told senior journalists at the Economic...