-The Hindu   The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday refuted the “specious explanations” on inflation given by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee saying his statement hid the government's failure to check price rise. Reacting to his November 22 suo motu statement in Parliament, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau said: “It is nothing but an exercise in deception to conceal the utter failure of the UPA government in checking the relentless price rise.” While referring...

While higher income levels mean countries have more money to improve women's health, ultimately it comes down to how governments decide to spend the money We know that economic growth and human development do not always go hand in hand, as evidenced by the very different position of countries in per capita GDP rankings compared with human development rankings. But the link between health conditions and economic growth is usually thought...

An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...

We see malnutrition as a burden on our conscience, and on our exchequer. We also know it is a daunting task to get rid of child malnutrition. But do we know about the economic benefits on the other side? A new FAO report tells us that India can increase its national income by a massive US$ 28 billion by eliminating child malnutrition. Now that is serious economic gain so read...

The promotion of the PDS as an Aadhaar application would fundamentally alter its form and character. NO scheme of the Indian government would be transformed more fundamentally by Aadhaar than the public distribution system (PDS). The nature of this transformation appears to be taking the form of a virtual dismantling of the PDS; even if a skeletal fair price shop (FPS, or ration shop) system continues to exist, it is likely...