The United Nations Development Programme-sponsored 2009 Human Development Report on migration, “Overcoming Barriers: Human mobility and Development” has been widely acknowledged as a path-breaking study on human movement. Shattering the many myths around migration, the report concludes that most migration is in fact beneficial, and calls for supporting policies to ease barriers to free movement. Senior Assistant Country Director, UNDP, K. Seeta Prabhu. discusses the report with The Hindu For...

Demonstrates very high levels of social capital, but overall ranking brought down by low levels of education, internal security and health LONDON, October 26, 2009 – The third edition of the Legatum Prosperity Index, published on 26 October, 2009 ranks 104 countries (covering 90% of the world’s population), based on a definition of prosperity that combines economic growth together with measures of happiness and quality of life. According to this year’s Legatum...

A new international report slams the Indian government for not doing enough to end hunger. It says hunger exists in India because of a lack of purchasing capacity of the poor rather due to insufficiency of food production. Titled “Who’s Really Fighting Hunger”?, (see the link below) the Action Aid report which was released on 16 October, 2009 reveals that in India 30 million people have been added to the...

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that worldwide progress in reducing hunger remains slow. The 2009 global GHI has fallen by only one quarter from the 1990 GHI. Southeast Asia, the Near East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean have reduced hunger significantly since 1990, but the GHI remains distressingly high in South Asia, which has made progress since 1990, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, where progress has...

NEW DELHI — When the United Nations convened its summit meeting on climate change last month, China and the United States, the two most important countries at the negotiating table, hewed to mostly familiar scripts, making promises without making too many specific commitments. Less familiar was the script followed by the third most important country at the table, India. India’s public stance on climate change is usually predictable — predictably obstinate...