-Live Mint China nearly doubled its rural poverty threshold last week, in a move that will make an estimated 130 million people (or nearly one-tenth of its total population) eligible for various social support schemes funded by the government. China has now tweaked its poverty line for the fourth time in four years. Poverty lines are not set in stone. They have to be regularly changed. This development comes just as the...

-The Times of India   Terming the government's attempt to allow foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail as a miscalculation that lacked political consensus, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has warned that a looming slowdown needs urgent measures to remove supply side blockages. The former finance minister, who heads Parliament's standing committee on finance, said unlike in 2008, the government has no room to increase the fiscal deficit that is already above 5% while...

Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh admitted lapses of the past but spoke of a new beginning today in Saranda while unveiling an action plan for the forest region that was under the shadow of Maoist terror for over a decade. Armed with goodies like bicycles and transistor radios for residents of Chotanagra panchayat, about 120km from district headquarters of Chaibasa, Ramesh made it clear that the implementation of the development...

The Congress today appears besieged and beleaguered with key allies and even members from its own ranks lining up behind the combined Opposition in vehemently opposing the Manmohan Singh government’s decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail. But, paradoxically, this state of siege — reflected by the prolonged deadlock in Parliament with a quasi no-confidence motion hanging over it — also gives the Grand Old Party a great opportunity not just...

Thirty-four-year-old Praseetha Dineshan from Kattipara panchayat in Kozhikode used to work as a postwoman delivering letters from 8 am to 5.30 pm. No longer.  After completing a training course of Coconut Development Board (CDB) for climbing coconut tree using a machine, she has now quit her temporary job and is happy to climb coconut trees to pluck coconuts. "Yesterday I climbed 15 trees and today I did 20. More and more people...