The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money. But is it...

Query on SC, ST status included; caste-based enumeration from June to September 2011 Census 2011, billed as the largest peacetime mobilisation in the world, will see the massive exercise of population enumeration across the country simultaneously, between February 9 and 28. Registrar-General and Census Commissioner C. Chandramouli said on Wednesday that the biggest-ever census attempted in the history of mankind to enumerate the country's 1.2-billion population would be conducted across 35...

As government, corporates seek to engage with NGOs, they gain new significance Brave NGO World?     * The Planning Commission is courting NGOs for policy inputs, views on how to make plans work     * NGOs and local activism forced govt to stall Vedanta, Posco plans     * NGO opposition to snacks being served in schools changed plans to scrap hot meals     * NGO have made the government rethink the Polavaram dam project    ...

The countrywide share of corporate retail in food distribution tripled in the past four years when retail food prices showed the greatest increase. THE dramatic increase in food inflation over the past two years has been associated with several surprises. One major surprise has been how the top economic policymakers in the country have responded to it. The initial response was one of apparent disbelief, followed very quickly by the...

The class bias in government policy is clear in the decision to release a small amount of foodgrain in the open market to tackle inflation. MOST people would agree that there is a strong element of speculation underlying the current inflation and that forward trading contributes to it. Yet the government, though it has banned forward trading in certain commodities under public pressure, is curiously reluctant to see this point....