Various estimates of the extra cost to the government for an improved food security Bill are doing the rounds, but many agree the Union government’s proposed food subsidy bill would double. The proposed Bill offers 25 kg per family per month at Rs 3 a kg, to only families below the poverty line, or about 84 million households. Activists are insisting this be raised to 35 kg a family and to...

The cynics have a hierarchy on facts — lies, damned lies and statistics! But, modern economies live on numbers and economists love numbers. So, one must be deferential towards statisticians and statistics. Even so, India’s poverty numbers and their repeated re-engineering test one’s patience. It is possible to imagine that there would be as many estimates of poverty in India as there are estimates of it. So, one should not...

India's annual food and fuel inflation quickened in the week to April 10, putting upside pressure on the headline inflation and central bank to take action before its next policy review in July. The food price index rose 17.65 percent in the 12 months to April 10, marginally higher than an annual rise of 17.22 percent in the previous week. The fuel price index rose 12.45 percent in the 12 months to...

A meticulously researched book by A. Vaidyanathan, Agricultural Growth in India: Role of Technology, Incentives and Institutions, is an illuminating scholarly work. Thinking about it one realizes the dismal and declining state of Indian agriculture and the poor governance at both Central and state government levels that has brought it to this sorry pass. A valuable compendium of data and analysis of Indian agriculture since Independence, it is a valuable...

Today, we have reached a historic milestone in our country's struggle for children's right to education. The Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, 2002, making elementary education a Fundamental Right, and its consequential legislation, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, comes into force today. The enforcement of this right represents a momentous step forward in our 100-year struggle for universalising elementary education. Over the years, the demand...