The India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) alliance have been honoured with the 2010 UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) award for their efforts in the fight against poverty. The award recognized India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation (IBSA Fund) for their hard work in using innovative approaches to share, replicate and scale up successful development experiences for combating poverty and hunger in other parts of the...

RAM KARUTURI, the world’s largest rose grower, calls it a situation that needs immediate intervention. Else, he is sure the rush of Indians to Africa will ebb to a trickle, which, in turn, could have serious implications as ethnic tensions with the locals are slowly, but steadily, rising in some parts of the continent. The hub of the crisis is Gambela, one of Ethiopia’s nine states, for long starved of investment....

The out-of-pocket healthcare spending by Indians continues to push them further into poverty with the public spending on health is almost negligible, according to the India Health Report 2010. Studies have documented that households in India spend a disproportionate share of their consumption expenditure on health, with the contribution from government being almost negligible. Public spending on health is very low, stagnant at about 1 per cent of GDP, putting India...

The country is set to emulate Gujarat in tracking pregnant women and children on a continuing basis through a constant monitoring of their health, nutrition and immunisation profile. Twenty-three officials of health and family welfare departments and National Informatics Centre (NIC) from eight states are participating in a three-day training workshop to familiarise themselves with the Gujarat Model of what is now popularly known as 'E-Mamta', an official spokesperson said here...

The poor in India's cities are in many ways worse off than those in rural areas, says Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja, pointing out that the Urban Population is set to double in the next 25 years to over 600 million. 'About 300 million people live in towns and cities underserved by utilities, with inadequate housing and increasingly choking traffic. The condition of the urban poor is by...