One billion hungry people, the largest such cluster in history, are depending on another one billion to donate small amounts of cash to find food. The World Food Programme, facing a funding shortfall with donor governments hit by the financial crisis, has issued its first direct appeal to one billion individuals to stump up what they can to help others beat hunger. Josette Sheeran, head of the UN food aid...

An ambitious human resource development ministry proposal aimed at ending persistent gaps between allocated and needed funds that plague the midday meal scheme has been rejected by a key finance panel. The Centre’s expenditure finance committee (EFC) has dumped the ministry proposal to tie costs of the meal scheme to fluctuating commodity prices through a special pricing index, The Telegraph has learnt. The EFC’s approval is mandatory for central proposals with...

Bhaskar Dutta’s recent article on this page confirms the new trends in educational planning since Kapil Sibal took charge. Action on the education front is long overdue, but it should not pre-empt ample debate. Such debate has barely got off the ground: Dutta’s article is a valuable contribution. We lament that with sadly few exceptions, our higher education system does not reach international standards. Most of our young talent goes...

Privatisation is no panacea when it comes to education. Nor can high-cost intervention at the tertiary stage produce quality talent. The back-bone of quality education is primary schooling. And improving that is not just a question of funding, even if the government does muster courage to raise expenditure on education from the present about 3% of GDP to the promised 6% of GDP. Granted, the UPA did raise this ratio...

When the Indian government met the largest economic crisis the world has faced in nearly 80 years with tax cuts, aid for rural workers and interest rate cuts, critics said it was not enough. Now, though, it looks as if the policy makers may have offered too much. India’s $1 trillion economy, largely insulated from the global crisis by low reliance on exports and a heavily regulated banking system, has exceeded expectations...