Chastened by the 'poverty line' controversy painting the Centre as insensitive to 'aam aadmi', the government is wary of challenging a Karnataka high court order which slammed the state for paying MGNREGA workers less than the minimum farm wages.  The court said that job scheme wages could not be less than the minimum agricultural wages and ordered that workers be paid the arrears.  The HC order would put an additional burden of...

The Planning Commission's laughable estimates of the ‘poverty line' follow from a mistake in method that it made 30 years ago and has clung to ever since. The affidavit that the Planning Commission recently submitted before the Supreme Court stating that a person is to be considered ‘poor' only if his or her monthly spending is below Rs.781 (Rs.26 a day) in the rural areas and Rs.965 (Rs.32 a day) in...

-The Hindu   ‘Panel's affidavit skirted main issues of why should there be poverty line that determines BPL “caps” and to re-consider poverty line' The Right to Food Campaign on Thursday asked the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to explain how the per capita poverty line expenditure of Rs. 25 per day in rural and Rs. 32 per day in urban area could be normatively ‘adequate' as the panel had claimed...

-The Hindu Business Line   Input subsidy expenses not contributing to boost productivity The World Bank has said that South Asia's foodgrain stock management, especially in India, needs to improve to tackle inflation. In its focus on food inflation in South Asia, the bank said that high stocks have led to high wastage due to inadequate storage capacity and technology. According to World Bank's estimates, the Food Corporation of India lost 10-16 million tonnes...

The government of India's Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY)a¦ is now internationally recognised for its innovative approach to harnessing information technology to reach the poor, says the World Bank in the context of the smart card-based cashless health insurance scheme. The RSBY has now been picked up by UNDP as one of the 19 schemes worldwide for its publication, Sharing Innovative Experience: Social Protection Floor Success Stories. About 20 million...