One man’s fiscal problem is another man’s lifeline. Trigger happy bureaucrats and economists may love shooting down subsidies because it bloats the fiscal deficit and burdens the government but the simple fact is that in a one billion strong nation, in which nearly one in every three live below the poverty line, one needs an effective and efficient method through which privileged tax payers can support the poor. Last week, finance...

If you could spend more than Rs 28 per day and lived in a town, or Rs 22 per day and lived in a village, you were above the poverty line. This is Planning Commission's new poverty line for the year 2009-2010. According to its most recent estimates, 52 million people moved out of poverty between 2005 and 2010. For rural areas, poverty is down from 42% to 33% while for...

The UPA-II has used the Budget to again play politics with hunger. But it has paid no heed to the ticking time bomb of growing social tensions as 58 million Indians living off agriculture slide deeper into poverty. The Economic Survey says more than half the population is dependent on a sector whose share in the economy is shrinking. The urban-rural income divide is therefore steadily widening, a tinder box that...

-The Times of India Diversion of foreign contribution by NGOs is not limited to the 12 organizations whose cases were referred for probe recently. The muck, in fact, runs much deeper with official figures showing that the government has taken action against at least 160 voluntary bodies, including referring 24 cases to CBI and seven to different state police for investigation in the past three years. Besides, 70 NGOs have been prohibited...

The Planning Commission on Monday released the latest poverty estimates for the country showing a decline in the incidence of poverty by 7.3 per cent over the past five years and stating that anyone with a daily consumption expenditure of Rs. 28.35 and Rs. 22.42 in urban and rural areas respectively is above the poverty line. The new poverty estimates for 2011-12 will only add to the furore triggered by the...