Karnataka, India’s IT success story and its most preferred destination for foreign investment, boasts of the country’s highest per capita income. Its economic indicators are nothing short of superlative and yet the South Indian State accounts for thousands of child deaths due to malnutrition. A recent report shows that despite high SGDP growth and heightened economic activity, Karnataka fares poorly in hunger index and child malnutrition. A recent report by news...

-IBNS   A group of about 35 women economists from different countries of Europe, UK, US, Australia and India, have written an open letter to Prime Ministers and Presidents of South Asian nations, including India, which are facing acute sanitation crisis. From India, Jayati Ghosh, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Bina Agarwal, Director, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University and Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Chairperson Board of Governors, Indian...

Social activists up in arms against proposed reforms; impact on procurement feared   The Union Government's new move to give primacy in the revised draft of the National Food Security Bill, 2011, to controversial schemes like cash transfers and issuance of food coupons to identified public distribution system beneficiaries in lieu of foodgrain entitlements has got social activists up in arms. The scheme was introduced under ‘Schedule II' in the initial draft of...

UPA’s much-publicised scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), is not creating labour shortage for agriculture and dairy production alone, but the textile and handloom sectors are also facing the heat on this count. A Working Group report on textile and handloom sectors has noted that the scheme was drawing skilled weavers to ‘unskilled’ MGNREGA. It says that high-end weavers are sticking to the profession, but low-end weavers are...

-The Hindu   A group of NGOs conducted a survey in 11 districts In the wake of the Department of Women and Child Development acknowledging that there are 72,000 severely malnourished children in the State, a group of NGOs conducted a survey of malnourished children in 11 districts. According to the study, the worst-affected are children from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe families where parents worked on daily wages. The study, which aimed at studying...