The draft Food Security Bill makes it compulsory for state governments to pay a food security allowance to targeted sections in case of failure to supply foodgrain through a sweeping welfare scheme targeted at nearly three-fourths of the population. The amount will be decided by the central government. The draft bill also presses for a radical overhaul of the food distribution system by giving incentives to independent agencies that procure...
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Starvation line? Govt firm on poverty limit by Basant Kumar Mohanty
Renu Devi is scared. The Planning Commission’s new definition of poverty will eject her from the set of below-poverty-line households, and her family will lose the right to 25kg rice and wheat a month at Rs 5 per kilo. The plan panel has fixed a cut-off of Rs 675 and Rs 870 as the monthly per head expenditure, in rural and urban areas respectively, for a family to qualify as poor....
More »Caste census will benefit the deprived by Surinder S Jodhka
AFTER MORE than a year’s debate on enumerating caste in Census 2011, it was finally decided in a Cabinet meeting on 19 May that all Indians would be asked their caste and religion along with their economic status. The caste census will be conducted as part of the ‘below poverty line’ (BPL) survey, to be carried out by the Ministries of Rural Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation along...
More »Poverty begets poverty by Richard Mahapatra
A 30-year survey of the poor gives a wake-up call POVERTY is becoming hereditary in India, at least for a sizeable population. That is the conclusion derived from a three-decade tracking of poor households in rural India. A survey by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), an international association of researchers and academicians, claims that those who are chronically poor may pass on poverty to their next generation. What’s more, people residing...
More »Selective abortion prevented birth of millions of girls by Aarti Dhar
Selective abortion of girls in India prevented about 4.2 million to 12.1 million girls from being born between 1980 and 2010, with the largest number of girls being aborted in the 1990s, a latest survey has shown. Selective abortion of girls, especially for pregnancies after a firstborn girl, has increased substantially in India. Most of India's population now lives in States where selective abortion is common, says the study “Trends in...
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