The Finance Ministry has turned down a proposal for doubling the number of employment days guaranteed to below poverty line people under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The Rural Development Ministry had proposed doubling the minimum days for employment from 100 to 200 days and also called for linking the wage rate to the annual inflation rate. “The Ministry had written to us asking for funds to...

When flames from an open cooking fire raced through Fida Hussein's shack in northern India, it was a disaster for him and his poverty-stricken family. "We have nothing," said Hussein as he stood in the ruins of his hut through which the sky could be seen between the burnt roof timbers in a remote corner of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state. India's number of millionaires grew by 51 percent...

The proposed food security law is expected to kick in by next April for a year in one-fourth — or 200 — of the country’s poorest districts or blocks, depending on whichever is administratively tenable. The proposal — agreed upon by the National Advisory Council (NAC) — is tactically aimed at pleasing food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar as well as others in the government, Planning Commission and the advisory panel...

The National Advisory Council (NAC) met the Food Ministry halfway on Wednesday, when it recommended extension of universal food entitlements to one-fourth of either the poorest districts or the poorest blocks in the country. This decision emerged after some NAC members pointed out that universalisation of food security would not be possible, given the current state of agricultural productivity and the level of grain procurement. However, they agreed that the implementation...

India is incredible (after shining), with the fastest growth rate, an emerging demographic dividend and innovative brains for the globe. But the vast majority in rural India — employed in agriculture, small-scale and tiny industries, self-employed, and with no assets — does not find it so. This government, claiming inclusive growth for the grossly deprived and poor, has not taken actions to bring down prices of essential food items, unprecedented...