‘No mechanism to protect the poor’ IN a period characterised by all-round price rise, the issue of food security assumes extreme significance, especially for the rural and urban poor. At a time when the need for a universal public distribution system is increasingly felt, the government’s categorisation of a very small percentage of the people as being below the poverty line and eligible for rations has invited a lot of...

‘Entitlements under NREGA violated’       Jean Drèze is a Development Economist of Belgian origin (now an Indian citizen) and has co-authored several books with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. He studied Mathematical Economics at the University of Essex and did his PhD (Economics) at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. Jean has made wide-ranging contributions to development Economics and public Economics, with special reference to India. He is currently a visiting...

-The Telegraph Statistician fears 2021 Census resistance Calcutta: The 2021 Census could be in jeopardy because enumerators will face resistance while collecting information in the wake of the CAA-NRC-NPR protests, a former chief statistician of India said on Saturday. The house-listing work that precedes the Census is scheduled to begin from April and it could be the first casualty of this fear. That in turn can severely compromise the Census, Pronab Sen, who...