It is unbelievable but true! More than 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. One child dies of hunger-related causes every five seconds, taking a toll on 16,000 poor hungry children each day. More than 1.4 billion people live at poverty line or below. According to a the World Bank report, there are over 1,345 million poor people in developing countries who...
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Govt unveils health plan for elderly by Kounteya Sinha
India has finally woken up to the needs of the country's elderly. With the number of people in the 60-plus age group in India expected to increase to 100 million in 2013 and to 198 million in 2030, the health ministry is all set to roll out the National Programme for the Health Care of the Elderly (NPHCE). A ministry note, available with TOI, estimates that the elderly population will increase to 12% of...
More »Food Security Bill is ready: K.V. Thomas
Tipped as the flagship programme of the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the proposed Food Security Bill is ready, union minister K.V. Thomas said Saturday. Thomas, who recently was given independent charge of the consumer affairs, food and public distribution ministry, told reporters here that his department was ready with the path-breaking Food Security Bill. 'Early next month, it will be taken up for discussion by the National Advisory Committee and...
More »Wages of tokenism by TK Rajalakshmi
The revised daily wage for NREGS workers is still lower than the minimum wages paid in several States. A CONTROVERSY seems to have surfaced between the Prime Minister's Office and the National Advisory Council (NAC) on the issue of wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The NAC has been arguing for some time that there should be parity between wages under the National Rural Employment...
More »Neoliberal illogic by Prabhat Patnaik
The class bias in government policy is clear in the decision to release a small amount of foodgrain in the open market to tackle inflation. MOST people would agree that there is a strong element of speculation underlying the current inflation and that forward trading contributes to it. Yet the government, though it has banned forward trading in certain commodities under public pressure, is curiously reluctant to see this point....
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