Even as India once more self-declares its “arrival on the world stage” with a symbol for the Indian rupee, a global assessment presents a depressing picture of India’s actual economic performance. In a study whose conclusions were to be expected, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHDI) has revealed that an appropriate index of poverty (and deprivation) finds its incidence in India and elsewhere to be much greater than...

To millions of Indians, development is dreadful word aimed at denying them even source of sustenance Why is state's vision of development at such great odds with the people it purports to develop? The Supreme Court has expressed concern that the path of development by depriving landowners of their land seemed to give rise to insurgency and political extremism which, along with terrorism, are supposed to be the three gravest threats to...

There is a huge shortage of human resource in the sector The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has set up a task force to frame the curriculum for the Bachelor of Rural Health Care course, which is expected to be rolled out in a few months. A new cadre of health care workers for rural India is expected to help in overcoming the huge shortage of human resource in the...

Sujatha Sundaran, 25, sits on a rickety bench and points to a rubber nursery that was a helipad about a decade ago in Mundakkai colony in the heart of Kerala’s northern district of Kasargod. Local children used to watch with awe as the choppers flew overhead and sprayed the insecticide endosulfan on the cashew groves of the Plantation Corp. of Kerala Ltd, a state government undertaking. She was eight when she...

The goal of food for all can be achieved only through greater and integrated attention to production, procurement, preservation and public distribution. The President, in her address to Parliament on June 4, 2009, announced: “My Government proposes to enact a new law — the National Food Security Act — that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all. Every family below the poverty line in...