-TimesWireService.Com   Patna/ New Delhi: Bihar Continues To Be At The Bottom Of The Ladder So Far Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (mpce) Is Concerned. Punjab, Kerala And Maharashtra Continue To Top The List. According To The 66th Round Of The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey Released By The National Sample Survey Office (nsso) On Friday, Rural Bihar With Just Rs 780 Has The Lowest Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (mpce) In The Country To...

Despite the much-hyped rural consumption boom and all the social sector programmes of the government, the income inequality between the rural and urban consumer widened to 91% in the first five years of the United Progressive Alliance coming to power in 2004. According to the 66th round of the household consumption expenditure survey released by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on Friday, the per capita expenditure level of the urban...

-The Economic Times   Rural Indian households are spending more on consumer goods like durables, beverages and services than five years ago, shows the latest expenditure data that debunks the notion that rapid growth in recent years did not benefit the hinterlands. The household consumer expenditure survey for 2009-10, released by the National Sample Survey Office ( NSSO )) on Friday, shows rising real spending in rural areas, even though it...

Scene I: Rows of paediatric beds (cots) lie abandoned outside a ward where babies, children and mothers are jostling for space at MR Bangur Hospital in Calcutta’s Tollygunge. Scene II: A Group D employee relaxes on a bed meant for a sick baby in the paediatric ward at Barasat District Hospital, North 24-Parganas. No doctor visible at the emergency ward where, too, beds lie vacant. July 3: Part of the reason for...

Those of us interested in gender equality tend to be obsessed with the politically and economically important areas in which we need this equality — education, employment, health, political representation. But equality in these important but grim attributes leaves out many things that actually make life more enjoyable and thus more worth living. Women deserve more from gender equality than better housekeeping and management skills. In most societies, men are much...