-The United Nations Sustainable cities are an aspiration as the number of slum dwellers continues to rise and the rate of urbanization skyrockets, a senior United Nations official today said, ahead of an upcoming UN forum that will focus on creating cities and towns more economically, socially and politically accessible. "One of the main aspects in urbanization is to diminish the level of inequality because it presents a new set of social...

-The Hindu We rarely ask the poor what poverty means to them and what changes in lifestyle would make them poverty-free The idea that poverty is determined, defined and measured by a group of people mostly unaffected by it is an intriguing one. Numerous definitions and studies globally tell us what poverty is, how it is measured - extreme and the moderate (there are categories!). Though surprisingly, none of these definitions has...

-Outlook Panaji: Activists who stop power plants, coal mining and projects like dams do not help in removing poverty from the country, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said. "There is nothing more important than removing poverty from the country. I want to ask people who protest whether their action results in removing poverty?" Chidambaram said during an interview at 'ThinkFest' event in Goa. "Poverty is the greatest polluter and a curse. There...

-The Business Standard A third of Indians migrate, but government ignores them A recent UNESCO report reveals how widely prevalent migration within India has become, and has once again revived the apparently endless debate on whether this trend should be curbed or encouraged. Under the United Progressive Alliance government, internal migration has been seen as a sign of distress rather than of aspiration, and thus there have been various bids to control...

-Newsclick.in Recent studies have shown that even as India fares better than many developing regions of the world on several indicators of growth and development such as GDP, per capita, Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), literacy, life expectancy, etc., the number of malnourished children in India is significantly high. What explains this paradox? The Union Cabinet recently approved a multi-sectoral nutritional programme proposed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to reduce...