-Thomson Reuters Foundation The lastest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report not only provides new evidence but also sounds an alarm over the impact climate change is having on compounding hunger and significantly disrupting food grain production. Apart from leaving the world hungry and hot, the changing climate will also offset gains against poverty and hunger, especially among the marginalized communities. The new report makes unequivocal projections for India being one...

-The Hindu Chennai (Tamil Nadu): Many still believe that the UPA regime's flagship rural job scheme, the ‘Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)', silently did wonders for the Congress in 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Will it be a game-changer in the 2014 polls also? There is no straight ‘Yes' or a ‘No' for an answer, as this correspondent discovered during a tour of some of the districts in Tamil...

-Economic and Political Weekly Multiplicity of ration cardholder lists has been found to be a cause for exclusion of the needy from access to subsidised food. A report from Allahabad district of Uttar Pradesh. Aman (amannlu@gmail.com) is a lawyer, currently clerking with a judge at the International Criminal Court, The Hague. Ashutosh Agrawal (ashutosha.56@gmail.com) is studying Economics and Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. The authors would like to thank Jean Drèze...

-Down to Earth Demand income security and sustainability, and redressal of grievances relating to land matters which they say are the biggest source of corruption and mis-governance The apathy of successive governments of Andhra Pradesh towards the deepening Agrarian crisis has resulted in farmers groups organising themselves to put pressure on political parties during election time. The Rythu Swarajya Vedika, an umbrella organisation of various farmers' groups and non-profits working in the...

A new report entitled Improving Access to Finance for Women-owned Businesses in India (2014), jointly produced by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Government of Japan, underlines the importance of lending to women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)* in India (see the link below). It discusses the problem of accessing finance faced by women entrepreneurs despite them having stronger repayment track records vis-À-vis men (non-performing loans are 30 to...