-The Hindu     In spite of the rosy picture painted by the World Bank, the prospect of eliminating extreme poverty remains distant In a protracted period of gloom and persistent recession with feeble signs of recovery in a large part of the developed world, the World Bank, Brookings Institution and others can be forgiven for their euphoria over the accomplishment of a key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) - of halving extreme poverty in...

-Economic and Political Weekly   A report on the 2013 deliberation of the Kolkata Group at its 10th workshop which focused on healthcare, the status of women and social justice in India. A K Shiva Kumar (akshivakumar@gmail.com) is convener of the Kolkata Group workshops which are organised by Pratichi (India) Trust, the Harvard Global Equity Initiative and UNICEF India. At the 10th annual Kolkata Group workshop in February this year, 40 policymakers, development practitioners,...

Argumentative Indians are at it again! After sparring over the poverty line and the actual number of poor, India's renowned economists have fired up a fresh debate over the extent of malnutrition. In the earlier debate, the Planning Commission ‘reduced' poverty on paper disregarding NSSO and official committees, including the NCEUS, which determined that 77% Indians survived on less than Rs 20 a day. Columbia university economist Arvind Panagariya has...

-The Economic Times Arvind Panagariya, a professor of Indian economics at Columbia University, hits out at Nobel laureate and Harvard University professor Amartya Sen over his call to confront MPs with the "number of deaths" a delayed Food Security Bill can cause. The former chief economist at the Asian Development Bank counters Sen's argument that it is high social spending that has contributed to the economic growth of Asian economies such...

-The United Nations     While insects can be slimy, cringe-inducing creatures, often squashed on sight by humans, a new book released today by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) says beetles, wasps and caterpillars are also an unexplored nutrition source that can help address global food insecurity. The book, Edible Insects: future prospects for food and feed security, stresses not just the nutritional value of insects, but also the benefits that insect farming...