-The Hindu In an agreement with Jan Satyagraha, Centre promises to initiate land reforms Thousands of landless poor aborted their march to Delhi on Thursday, accepting the government's promises to initiate land reform and the possibility of statutory backing for the right to shelter, homestead and agricultural land. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh signed a 10-point agreement in Agra — barely 10 days after refusing to sign a similar deal at the march’s...

-Live Mint Uttar Pradesh emerges as the state having the worst healthcare indicators in the country Safe child deliveries, the use of contraceptives, and post-natal care for mothers are still largely alien concepts in India’s poorest states, a government survey has found. Uttar Pradesh (UP) emerged as the state having the worst health indicators in the country. The Annual Health Survey (2010-11) to assess the impact of the government’s flagship health programme, the National...

The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money. But is it...

Latin America, the poster child of bad economic policy in the 1980s and early 1990s, is leading the way in one rapidly evolving area of social development: conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes. These schemes provide cash payments to poor households that meet certain behavioural requirements, generally related to children’s healthcare and education. The idea here is to support minimal levels of consumption through income transfers, while encouraging long-term human development. The...

For a village of 400, a lesson learnt in 1965 and acted upon 20 years later has meant that its residents don’t have to worry about Jharkhand’s recurring calamity: drought. For those living in the Gumla village surrounded by hills, parched farmlands are a thing of the past, thanks to the success of a community initiative that led to the construction of a check dam to trap the water of a...