The June 1 announcement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while releasing the Report Card for the first year of the second term of the United Progressive Alliance Government, that the Food Security Bill was under preparation and that the Bill would be placed in the public domain for scrutiny and wider consultation has raised hopes about early enactment of the law to ensure the people's right to food as part...

Many governments in the developing world lack the will to eradicate child labour, says the third ILO global report on the deplorable practice. The effects of the present global economic and financial crisis, rather than its causes, have been the central preoccupation of organisations such as the International Labour Organisation in recent times. The ILO, in particular, has focussed on the impact of the crisis on populations within the least...

‘Beggar type.’ Like most of us, Smita Jacob had never come across that pithy official phrase before. It’s a classification in the records of the police of New Delhi, India’s richest city, used to describe a dead homeless person whose death is too insignificant to investigate. The police are as sensitive as you and I to the cripple on the pavement, the child at the car window. They mean no...

This is a story of a bunch of gritty women in a small Andhra village who used their traditional resources and knowledge to fight poverty and create a source of livelihoods for others. A group of 34 women, most of them illiterate, at village Pyalayaram, which falls in Deccan region of Zaheerabad mandal in the state of Andhra Pradesh.decided to set up a community grain bank with a little help...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday singled out resilience of the Indian economy in times of global meltdown as a signature achievement of UPA II's first year in office, and pushed for "new frontiers" in implementing the social inclusion agenda, including food security act and education for all. In a spirit of introspection, Manmohan Singh, however, admitted that soaring prices of basic commodities remained a source of concern and stressed that...