-Al Jazeera The UN claims that its Millennium Development Campaign has reduced poverty globally, an assertion that is far from true. The received wisdom comes to us from all directions: Poverty rates are declining and extreme poverty will soon be eradicated. The World Bank, the governments of wealthy countries, and - most importantly - the United Nations Millennium Campaign all agree on this narrative. Relax, they tell us. The world is getting...

-The Hindu The Planning Commission needed to be returned to its first purposes, to its transparent and audacious planning for an India progressing without old enervations and new injustices to prosperity. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. The 18th century nursery rhyme, its original probably a riddle, is loved for the one image it invokes - a great fall. The picture of a dumpy egg, of a being...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's poorest and socially underprivileged people seem to have benefited the least from a set of government programmes launched over the past decade to reduce personal expenses on health care, research suggests. A team of health economists has found that the financial burden of health care on India's poorest 20 per cent, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims has outpaced that on the richest 20 per cent and...

-The Guardian Scares over lizard and worms in food highlight flaws in flagship programme as India struggles to reach most remote schools Karulihai (Madhya Pradesh): The dirt roads leading to the village of Karulihai in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh make for a bumpy ride. As clouds of dust settle on the windscreen, it's easy to miss the one-room school that stands in the middle of the field. Voices of children,...

-The Asian Age In India and around the world, poverty is predominantly rural. Development agencies often note that 75 per cent of the world's extremely poor people - those who earn less than $1.25 a day - live in rural areas. New figures from the 2014 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which measures overlapping dimensions of deprivation, show that rural poverty rates are even higher in some regions. In South Asia, the...