The Centre, for the first time, has undertaken a nation-wide survey of slums to profile urban household poverty and the nature of jobs held by those living on society's fringes. The survey will profile slum-dwellers by caste and religion "for properly allocating development schemes, policy-making, project formulation and implementation, and monitoring", according to an official at the Union ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation (Hupa). The survey, being conducted under Hupa,...

To help farmers reeling under drought conditions  AHMEDABAD: Cooperative milk dairies in Gujarat have submitted a joint memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, requesting him to take immediate steps to discourage import of skimmed milk powder and butter oil and prevent export of ingredients used for manufacturing cattle feed. Among measures they have suggested to achieve the same, are restoration of customs duty on import of milk powder to the...

Noting that low female literacy was impeding growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched a major initiative in the education sector saying all steps to empower women socially, economically and politically would be taken by the government. Launching the Saakshar Bharat Mission in the capital, Singh also announced that a National Mission for the empowerment of women would be set up soon. While the Cabinet has already decided to amend the...

The time has come for a comprehensive right-to-food law to tackle the deprivation and food insecurity that haunts India.  Over the last decade or so, a series of developments have drawn attention to the problem of food security. These are the persistence of hunger in many parts of the country being juxtaposed with food surpluses and stocks; the adverse impact of globalisation on agriculture and rising food prices resulting in...

THE LAUNCH of free market liberalisation in 1991 triggered widespread prosperity for the Indian middle classes, making them the showpiece of India’s muchfêted economic boom. But little has ever changed for the bulk of the country’s poor, hundreds of millions of who continue to barely scrape through from day to day, doomed to extreme poverty and, consequently, malnutrition, disease and death. For decades, many among these millions have survived, however...