Conditional cash transfers” (CCTs) are a new buzzword in policy circles. The idea is simple: give poor people cash conditional on good behaviour such as sending children to school. This helps to score two goals in one shot: poor people get some income support, and at the same time, they take steps to lift themselves out of poverty. CCT enthusiasm, however, is often based on a superficial reading of the Latin...

-The Economic Times   Everyone knows poverty is rampant in India, but nobody knows exactly how many of us are poor. That's because we've tried to count the poor many times with different assumptions, and come up with widely different numbers. In 2004-05, the Planning Commission reckoned that only 27% of Indians were poor. This was debunked by a committee headed by Suresh Tendulkar in 2009, which pegged the number of poor...

For most people in cities, Labour Day (or May Day, which was on May 1) was just another public holiday that nobody thought too much about. On a day marked to give voice to the rights of the Indian work force, perhaps one ought to consider those who have been forced to join their ranks too soon - child labourers. According to government estimates, an astounding 42.02% of the Indian workforce...

Recently released data on infant deaths across states in India has thrown up surprising results, leaving health experts puzzled. Average infant mortality rate for the country as a whole stood at 50 in 2009, down by 30% compared to a decade ago. The rate is much higher than developed countries but the pace at which it is declining is encouraging. But the surprises lurk in state level data. Three states -...

Within weeks of getting bail from the Supreme Court in connection with charges of sedition, human rights activist Binayak Sen has been made member of the Planning Commission's Steering Committee on Health, which will advise the panel on the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-2017). Binayak Sen, who was released on bail from the Raipur jail last month, will, based on his experience of having worked as a paediatrician in Chhattisgarh's tribal belt,...