-The Hindu There is absolutely no methodological relationship between the Tendulkar poverty line and the one dollar poverty line. Mihir Shah has defended the poverty line recommended by the Suresh Tendulkar Committee in 2009 in his article in The Hindu (editorial page, "Understanding the Poverty Line", August 5, 2013). Mr. Shah makes two claims. First, he argues that "Tendulkar [...] computed poverty lines for 2004-05 at a level that was equivalent, in...

-Frontline The midday meal scheme is a grand idea in a flawed school system. "THEY played here, studied here and got buried here!" (Yahin khela, yahin padha aur yahin ho gaya dafan). With these emphatic words, grieving parents buried the bodies of two children within the compound of the Dharmasati Gandaman Primary School of Masharakh block in Saran district of Bihar. This sentiment was expressed with great dignity even in the...

-Frontline A World Bank report on climate change warns that a warmer world will trap millions in poverty. "Much of the advance of European capitalists and other members of the European ruling class was at the cost of the colonised and enslaved peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America," says Amiya Kumar Bagchi in his book "Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital." Capitalist expansion following the Industrial Revolution involved...

-The Hindu     Genetically modified crops, whose ecological effects are irreversible, could become a mainstay of Indian agriculture thanks to collusion between the government and the biotech industry The final report of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) on field trials of genetically modified crops is packed with revelations on what is wrong with institutional governance and regulation in India when it comes to GMOs (genetically-modified organisms). The report's release late last...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A community-managed meal scheme that has shown encouraging results in improving the nutrition level of pregnant women and lactating mothers in Andhra Pradesh may be replicated across the country. Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh told The Telegraph that Andhra’s Nutrition cum Day Care Centre (NDCC) scheme was being studied and could be replicated in rural areas under the Centre’s Aajeevika scheme. “The NDCC scheme is being implemented by self-help...