In a major shift in policy, the Centre now plans to confine food entitlement only to below poverty Line (BPL) households and completely exclude the existing category of the above poverty line families. This is one of the significant changes proposed in the National Food Security Bill which is currently being considered by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. Under the plan envisaged by the Centre, the task of identifying the BPL families will...

-The Economic Times His company's software has, over the decades, enabled legions of Indian youth to become computer engineers, and helped the country lay claim to IT superpower status. With luck, his fortune now may help the country achieve something much more basic. The global charity founded on the fortune of software billionaire Bill Gates is joining hands with the Indian government to improve sanitation in rural areas where nearly 60% of...

The marginalisation of tribals in the last few decades has been enormous. Tribals have lost out in agriculture, and their forests also stand depleted, writes KD Singh In 2006, the Prime Minister described the Maoist threat as “the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by the country” and suggested development in insurgency-affected regions as the key remedy. In 2009, the Union Government announced a new nationwide initiative, the ‘Integrated Action...

Gurgaon, with 20.9% household internet penetration, scored better than IT hubs like Bangalore and Hyderabad in Census 2011. But high internet use is leading to increase in the number of internet addicts in the city. Addictions have always been associated with substance abuse that alters the chemical balance of the brain. Recent research shows that one can even experience a high, from excessive use of the internet. Internet addicts experience a...

After the public outcry over the controversial Rs 28 a day poverty formulation, the Planning Commission has put the poverty debate in a deep freeze with the government setting up yet another expert group to take a relook at the existing methodology to determine the number of poor in the country. The decision, taken under public pressure, can be interpreted as rejection of the Tendulkar Committee report based on which the...