India may next year witness its first census since Independence that refers to caste, if the Centre accepts a social justice ministry recommendation that could be politically controversial. Officials said the ministry had asked for caste to be included as one of the criteria in the 2011 census, and recommended a differential headcount of the Other Backward Classes and reassessment of their conditions that could lead to changes in the OBC...
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Amartya Sen, Buddhadeb hold closed-door meeting
Agriculture, irrigation, primary education discussed ‘State will extend rural development projects further’ West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Thursday held a closed-door meeting with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen at a city hotel. The meeting lasted an hour. Sources said that at the meeting which began late on Thursday evening, the two discussed issues such as agriculture, irrigation, primary education in the State and also the progress of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled tribe and...
More »PM sees reforms benefiting poor
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the economic reforms initiated by him almost two decades ago had reduced the number of poor, though much more was still needed to be done. “There is no evidence that the new economic policies have had an adverse effect on the poor,” Singh said at the annual conference of the Indian Economic Association here today. “The percentage of population below the poverty line has certainly not...
More »Poverty is surely declining, but not fast enough: Manmohan Singh by Prafulla Das
“Much more needs to be done to improve the living standards of the poor” The decline in poverty has not been as fast as one would have wished and it remains a major challenge before the country because the poor are still too poor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday. Inaugurating the 92nd conference of the Indian Economic Association (IEA) at KIIT University here, Dr. Singh said much more...
More »Where child labour, migration are a way of life by Meena Menon
In Amravati villages, dropout is pronounced; alcohol is another problem The wooden door of Surekha Rathod’s house is held together by small strips of coloured ribbons. This is no decoration. Some days ago, Surekha’s drunken father, who was locked out, tried to break in with an axe and sliced off the door. “I had a narrow escape, even though I was inside the house,” says her mother, Sunanda. “My husband...
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