The 12th Plan Approach Paper looks upon land more as raw material for mining and industrialisation than as a source of livelihood for the poor. DESPITE a fast economic growth, more than 60 per cent of the population of India is still dependent on land. The 12th Plan Approach Paper, however, looks upon land not as a source of livelihood for the poor but as raw material for mining and industrialisation....

Are millions of Indians being forced to leave their villages for cities and towns because there aren't enough jobs at home and farm incomes are drying up? Is this "distress migration" unprecedented in India's history? Award-winning journalist P Sainath thinks so. Examining the latest census data, he finds that India's urban population has risen more (91 million more than in the 2001 census) than the rural population (90.6 million more than...

The government of India's Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY)a¦ is now internationally recognised for its innovative approach to harnessing information technology to reach the poor, says the World Bank in the context of the smart card-based cashless health insurance scheme. The RSBY has now been picked up by UNDP as one of the 19 schemes worldwide for its publication, Sharing Innovative Experience: Social Protection Floor Success Stories. About 20 million...

Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi sold off his business in 2003 to do something relevant. The Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai alumnus soon became a prolific user of the Right To Information Act and filed more than 800 RTI applications. He was appointed the Information Commissioner at the Central Information Commission, New Delhi, in 2008. In this freewheeling interview with rediff.com's Priyanka, Gandhi says that appellants must understand that law describes 'information' as something...

IN preparing the approach paper to the Twelfth Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission engaged “all interested persons” in the country in a wide, web-based consultative exercise and also involved a varied group of “stakeholders”. The resulting document clearly indicates some awareness of the complex problems likely to be faced by the economy in the coming period. But it falls short of expectations because it does not provide a cohesive...