Despite the much-hyped rural consumption boom and all the social sector programmes of the government, the income inequality between the rural and urban consumer widened to 91% in the first five years of the United Progressive Alliance coming to power in 2004. According to the 66th round of the household consumption expenditure survey released by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on Friday, the per capita expenditure level of the urban...

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has formally sent the proposed National Food Security bill to the government on behalf of theNational Advisory Council (NAC) that she chairs. Setting all doubts at rest about where she stands, the bill explicitly seeks that the subsidized rations be provided to at least 90% of rural population, and 50% of urban India. It urges the government to ensure that at least 46% and 28% of...

-The Business Standard   A young entrepreneur with an engineering degree from India’s premier engineering school and a postgraduate degree from the US’s finest technical school develops an innovative service aimed at ameliorating the energy utility situation in rural India. In 1995, he co-founds SELCO India, which provides customised energy solutions based on each household’s requirements. It facilitates low-income rural households to secure financing help from local financial institutions. Read how...

Those of us interested in gender equality tend to be obsessed with the politically and economically important areas in which we need this equality — education, employment, health, political representation. But equality in these important but grim attributes leaves out many things that actually make life more enjoyable and thus more worth living. Women deserve more from gender equality than better housekeeping and management skills. In most societies, men are much...

Boommi Gowda used to fear the night. Her vision fogged by glaucoma, she could not see by just the dim glow of a kerosene lamp, so she avoided going outside where king cobras slithered freely and tigers carried off neighborhood dogs. But things have changed at Gowda's home in the remote southern village of Nada. A solar-powered lamp pours white light across the front of the mud-walled hut she shares with...