If women in rural areas had the same access to land, technology, financial services, education and markets as men, agricultural production could be increased and the number of hungry people reduced by 100-150 million, FAO said today in its 2010-11 edition of The State of Food and Agriculture report. Yields on plots managed by women are lower than those managed by men, the report said. But this is not because women...

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Sunday released the Humanitarian Action for Children Report, 2011, requesting $1.4 billion in its appeal to donors to assist children and women caught in the throes of crises. The report highlights 32 countries and emphasizes the increasing importance of strengthening the resilience of communities. “Investing in children and building the resilience of countries and communities living on the edge not only shortens their road...

Cash transfers cannot and should not replace the public provision of essential goods and services, but rather supplement them. Cash transfers are the latest fad of the international development industry, as the preferred strategy for poverty reduction. And now Indian policymakers are busy catching up. The idea was mooted in the Government's Economic Survey for 2010-11, and the Finance Minister made an explicit announcement in his budget speech for replacing some...

During a recent trip to a rural part of western India to report on rising food prices, I met two kinds of farmers — those with access to irrigation and those without. The differences between the two were stark. Those with drip irrigation or sprinklers invariably were reaping rich harvests and profits. But the vast majority of India’s farmers fall in the second camp: they water their crops by flooding their...

In the pre-budget Economic Survey 2010-11, the Union finance ministry made a strong pitch for the pro-growth impact of investment in human capital adding, “fortunately, there is awareness of this in India and efforts are afoot in terms of budgetary allocation and actual initiatives to boost the development of skill and human capital.” Given this leading comment, it was only natural that Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee laid special emphasis...