Difficult times call for difficult measures. Pushed into a corner by an unsustainable fiscal deficit and various sectors and programs (including the proposed food security legislation) screaming for a greater share of the budget pie, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in India has been forced to do what it might not have otherwise—reduce its marquee job guarantee scheme’s allocation in a big way for the first time.  In one...

“The best way to solve the problem of surplus foodgrains is to roll out food security law” Opposing the Union Finance and Food & Civil Supply Ministries' proposal for providing foodgrains as part payment of wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh holds that the best way to solve the problem of surplus foodgrains is to roll out the food security law...

Dispur has decided to seek the intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resolve the contentious D-voter issue as well as consider the case of Hindus who came to Assam after Partition on humanitarian grounds. These issues will be part of the memorandum Dispur will be submitting to Singh, who will be here on a daylong visit to attend the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Assam Assembly, despite the 12-hour Assam...

-One World South Asia The World Bank signs an agreement with India to inject $ 352 million into the National Dairy Support Project, an initiative designed to revive the flagging fortunes of milk production in the country. Other than being crucial to the nutritional security of the country’s population; dairy farming or dairying is also a major source of livelihood for 147 million rural households in India. Spurred by the success of the...

Over the past week, I’ve chronicled my investigative research on starvation in India – a project I’ve been working on with a colleague from the Centre for Equity Studies, a New Delhi think tank. We’ve told stories of people who were forced to eat poisoned roots to stay alive; a family that suffered the deaths of members from three different generations in a span of 24 hours; a woman faced with...