-The Business Standard Against NDA's 75 million target, UPA added 61 million in 2013-14 The government's financial inclusion scheme, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, is an empty shell at the moment. The government heralded its achievement of clocking 15 million new bank accounts under the scheme by Thursday and looked ahead to the target of achieving 75 million accounts by January 2015. In fact, given that the UPA government added an additional 60.9...

-DNA The aim is to drive farmers out of agriculture and turn food production into industrial enterprise Some years ago, former President APJ Abdul Kalam was addressing students at an annual event organised by K Govindacharya's Bhartiya Swabhiman Andolan at Gulbarga in Karnataka. He exhorted students to work hard, educate themselves to become doctors, engineers, civil servants, scientists, economists and entrepreneurs. After he had ended his talk, a young student got...

-The Business Standard A delayed monsoon has forced farmers in Western UP to use alternative sources of irrigation, incurring 25-30% extra costs Saharanpur/Muzaffarnagar (UP): If the latest inflation reading at eight per cent, largely fuelled by near double-digit food inflation, has left us worried, get ready to pay even more for food in coming months. Though the monsoon deficit has reduced to only 17 per cent, the rise in input cost...

-The Business Standard A third of the poorest urban population had exclusive supply of drinking water in 2012 against 28.5% in 2008-09 Accessibility to potable water improved for the poor in the country between 2009 and 2012, particularly in rural areas, said a National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report. Around 27 per cent of those belonging to the bottom section (0-20 quintile) in rural areas had exclusive supply of drinking water in...

-Al Jazeera The UN claims that its Millennium Development Campaign has reduced poverty globally, an assertion that is far from true. The received wisdom comes to us from all directions: Poverty rates are declining and extreme poverty will soon be eradicated. The World Bank, the governments of wealthy countries, and - most importantly - the United Nations Millennium Campaign all agree on this narrative. Relax, they tell us. The world is getting...