-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: India is preparing to give mobile phones to each female member of a household, who has worked for 100 days in 2012 under a rural employment guarantee scheme run by the government, as per an internal presentation of the telecom department. If implemented, this would be the latest sop the government is planning to woo a population ahead of a slew of state polls leading up to...
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The dishonesty in counting the poor-Utsa Patnaik
-The Hindu The Planning Commission's spurious method shows a decline in poverty because it has continuously lowered the measuring standard The Planning Commission has once again embarrassed us with its claims of decline in poverty by 2011-12 to grossly unrealistic levels of 13.7 per cent of population in urban areas and 25.7 per cent in rural areas, using monthly poverty lines of Rs. 1000 and Rs. 816 respectively, or Rs. 33.3 and...
More »Urban Sikhs face highest unemployment -Mahendra Singh
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Unemployment was highest among Sikhs living in cities and towns during 2009-10 while the rate of joblessness showed a downward trend for Muslims in both urban and rural areas, a government survey released this month has revealed. Muslims had the lowest per capita spending, according to the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), which in its 2009-10 survey put out a new report on employment trends for...
More »This bill won’t eat your money -Sabina Alkire
-The Hindu The expenditure on providing food security will add minimally to India's public spending which is less than what even lower middle income Asian countries spend on social protection In recent media coverage, critics often argue that the cost of the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) is excessive. The Economic Times referred to the NFSB as a "money guzzling measure" and according to CNBC-TV18, Rahul Bajaj, chair of Bajaj Auto, said...
More »Vanishing poverty trick
-The Hindu In figures officially released this week, the Planning Commission claims that poverty incidence had declined from 37.2 per cent of the population in 2004-05 to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12. This 15.3 percentage points decline over a seven-year period amounts to an unprecedented annual decline of 2.2 percentage points in the poverty rate. If that trend is sustained, it would lead to an end to "official" poverty in India...
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