-The Economic Times   If food inflation seems to be pinching more, it is because vegetable prices barely decline in winters, Milk rises through the year and egg prices remain high in summers - all because of rising demand.  Over the years, the seasonal variation in prices has dropped and consumers do not have the option of shifting to cheaper produce to keep daily costs down, says a recent Reserve Bank of India...

-The Hindustan Times   As protesters blocked entry points to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) in Tamil Nadu for the third day in a row, the troubles of the 1,000 families trapped inside the complex deepened with water, Milk and other essential supplies beginning to run out. Although V Narayanasamy, minister of state in the prime minister's office, said the government would not abandon the project, one of the officials trapped inside...

-The Hindustan Times   Do these people look well-off to you? The planning commission puts them above poverty line. Basant Kumar, 51  Shopkeeper  Kusumpur Pahari slum,  Vasant Vihar, Delhi Daily expense: Rs 53   Basant Kumar runs a little shop in a slum in Vasant Vihar, home to over two lakh migrant families. He feeds and clothes his wife and three children on his meagre earnings of Rs5,000 a month. He also works odd-jobs, in construction or with...

The re-classification of villages and towns, and the changes this brings to the nation's rural-urban profile, happens every decade. Yet only Census 2011 shows us a huge turnaround, with urban India adding more people (91 million) than rural India (90.6 million) for the first time in 90 years. Clearly, something huge has happened in the last 10 years that drives those numbers. And that is: huge, uncharted migrations of people...

-The Times of India   Faced with fierce criticism over the Planning Commission’s new criteria for poverty line, the Government has asked the Plan panel to revise its affidavit. The Planning Commission had said that that those spending more than Rs. 32 a day in urban areas, or Rs. 26 a day in villages, would no longer be eligible to draw benefits meant for those living below the poverty line. The new tentative...