It is official now that the poverty in India is much more than earlier estimated. The Suresh Tendulkar Committee report submitted this month (December 09) estimates poverty in India at over 37 per cent (2004-5) and not at 28 per cent as calculated earlier. With recent price rise in food items factored, the current level could be even higher (See the link of the report below). The Government of India had...

Very little is known generally about operational NGOs that work closely with people on a daily basis. WHILE a good many people in the country know that the Central and State governments have a number of plans and projects to bring about development – not all of them either well-conceived or well administered – they are much less aware of the part played in the overall development process by non-governmental...

Referring to China in 1947, Nehru declared, “A new star has risen in the eastern horizon,” and some years later predicted, “If you peer into the future, the obvious fourth country in the world is India.” One of the countries he had in mind has disappeared, and he did not imagine that the emergence of India and China on the global stage would lead to mutual friction. The Chinese are...

For about a week after the Dubai crisis broke, international financial markets chose to ignore it. Stock-markets climbed, commodity prices rose and the dollar continued to be beaten down. It is not too difficult to explain this initial indifference. For one, the magnitude of the Dubai crisis appeared piffling, at first glance, compared to the “subprime” crisis or the meltdown following “Lehman’s bust”. When global banks had run up losses...

India needs to initiate a number of steps to manage the emerging situation.  After three consecutive good years, agricultural production has faltered in the last two years. There was a fall in production to the tune of 1.6 per cent in 2008-2009 compared to the previous year. This year, again, agricultural production is likely to be down by 2 per cent or more. The deceleration in the growth of foodgrain...