-The Hindu Providing access to credit likely to be a hard step For Prime Minister Narendra Modi's newly launched Jan Dhan Yojana to be successful, India needs to provide over 100 million households access to banks, data show. An even harder step, however, is likely to be access to credit. As of March 2012, the most recent year for which relevant Reserve Bank of India (RBI) statistics are available, India had over 900...

-IndiaSpend.com Is India winning the battle against malnutrition? A comprehensive answer, for several reasons, would be yes. First, there is a downstream impact of economic growth and reduction in overall poverty numbers, most of which has happened in the last decade. Second, it does appear that in many states of India, concerted and co-ordinated efforts by the Government are beginning to bear fruit. Also remember that most data on malnutrition goes back a...

-The Hindustan Times Every second woman in rural India walked an average 173 kilometres - the distance between Delhi and Vrindavan - to fetch potable water in 2012, making her trek 25 kilometres longer than what it was in 2008-09. Data released this week by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), a ministry of statistics and programme implementation wing, gives two broad hints when compared with previous studies: economic...

-The Hindu Business Line Corruption in NREGA works has steadily declined in recent years. There are important lessons here that need to be extended to other domains One neglected aspect of the debate on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) relates to the process aspects of the programme. In the process of planning works, organising employment, paying wages or fighting corruption, many valuable activities take place: Gram Sabhas are held, workers...

-Al Jazeera The UN claims that its Millennium Development Campaign has reduced poverty globally, an assertion that is far from true. The received wisdom comes to us from all directions: Poverty rates are declining and extreme poverty will soon be eradicated. The World Bank, the governments of wealthy countries, and - most importantly - the United Nations Millennium Campaign all agree on this narrative. Relax, they tell us. The world is getting...