-DNA India is home to the highest number of hungry people in the world, at 194 million, surpassing China, according to United Nations annual hunger report. At the global level, the corresponding figure dropped to 795 million in 2014-15, from 1 billion in 1990-92, with East Asia led by China accounting for most of the reductions, UN body Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in its report titled 'The State of Food...

-TheWeekendLeader.com Bhubaneswar: Sabita Sahoo, 35, a migrant labourer, works in a brick kiln unit near Balianta in Khurda district of Odisha. Severe poverty and debt, brought on by landlessness, force her family of five, including her children, to move out of their village in Bolangir district in search of suitable livelihood opportunities. Year after year, Sahoo’s top concern, as always, is about being able to earn enough in order to provide two...

-IndiaSpend.org   A chicken, goat or a similar “productive asset” or goods (such as betel leaves or vegetables) for a small shop. Training on using such assets. Money to reduce incentive to sell assets in an emergency. Frequent personal mentoring or coaching. Health education. Savings services for between 18 and 24 months. These interventions led to a 15% increase in assets, 26% growth in consumption and 96% rise in savings among the ultra-poor...

-The Indian Express Among the Modi government’s many hits was one crucial miss — agriculture. The Narendra Modi sarkar’s performance in the first year has at least five major achievements and one major miss. To ensure that this neglect does not become its Achilles’ heel, the Modi sarkar will have to focus on and initiate reforms in this weakest link in the chain — agriculture. Else, it will not let the Indian...

-The Indian Express Poorly designed policies are largely to blame for farm distress Successive governments have transformed an unevenly prosperous rural society to one which is evenly distressed. Small and marginal farmers now feel worse off than the landless. Most suicides have taken place in the families of such farmers, especially those with no source of non-farm income. For the sense of desperation that now pervades rural India, all political parties are...