-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Facing allegations of trivializing poverty for tom-tomming Planning Commission figures that show a decline in the number of poor, the Congress changed its tune on Saturday to dub the poverty line as "unrealistic". The all-round assault on Congress seems to have resulted in the course correction that reflected in the disapprovals issued by Digvijaya Singh, Kapil Sibal and Rajiv Shukla. Union minister Kapil Sibal and AICC general...

-The Hindu Groundwater meets three quarters of the State's farming needs The Punjab State Farmers Commission recently published a draft new agriculture policy for the State that envisages substantial crop diversification from paddy and wheat staples that the State has been growing since the sixties. The draft policy, currently being debated in agriculture circles, is the first serious road map to steer Punjab's agriculture towards a new dynamic, necessitated by a sharp...

-The Times of India The ongoing 'Bhagwati versus Sen' debate has generated more heat than light, necessitating correction. As an equal co-author of India's Tryst with Destiny, which defines the Bhagwati position, my stake in the debate is second to none. Two extreme characterisations of the positions of the two sides have emerged. The first has it that the differences between them are minimal with each side expressing the same ideas in...

-The Hindu Dip in Congress' vote share from SCs, STs, Muslims - its traditional support base Cities are driving the anti-UPA sentiment, while marginalised communities - the Congress' traditional base - are more satisfied than dissatisfied with UPA-II's performance. These findings emerge from a CNN IBN-The Hindu-election tracker poll of 19,062 demographically representative respondents. Just 38 per cent of respondents expressed satisfaction with UPA-II's performance (with 22 per cent undecided), down from 49...

-PTI NEW DELHI: With barely a month left for the proposed launch of its ambition food security scheme, Delhi Government today finalised the various nitty gritties. A meeting of the Delhi Cabinet presided by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit gave its in-principle approval for formal launch of the scheme on August 20, the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and finalised various aspects relating to implementation of the scheme. Though the scheme...