In the ninth year of his 10-year term in Tihar, 25-year-old Anil is savouring a taste of what life might soon be for him. Between 11 am and 6 pm, Anil is free — free to roam around the 450-acre prison complex and work at Tihar Haat, to enter which he actually steps out of the prison gate. Anil is one of two prisoners made a part of Tihar’s semi-open jail...
More »SEARCH RESULT
The poverty wars and impossibly low poverty line of India by V Raghunathan
Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar (TOI March 25 and ET March 28) has strongly defended the Planning Commission's stance that there is nothing amiss with the poverty line drawn at Rs 22.40 in rural areas and Rs 28.65 in urban areas (down from initial estimates of Rs 32 and Rs 26, respectively). Let us discount the copious tears being shed by various politicians and their parties on this new line of poverty...
More »In whose welfare?-Gaurav Choudhury
One man’s fiscal problem is another man’s lifeline. Trigger happy bureaucrats and economists may love shooting down subsidies because it bloats the fiscal deficit and burdens the government but the simple fact is that in a one billion strong nation, in which nearly one in every three live below the poverty line, one needs an effective and efficient method through which privileged tax payers can support the poor. Last week, finance...
More »Technical committee to estimate poverty, says Manmohan by K Balchand
It will not work at cross purposes with the Abhijit Sen committee: Ashwani Kumar In a bid to address the rising concerns, within and outside Parliament, over the latest poverty estimates released by the Planning Commission, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday declared that a technical group would be put in place to come up a new methodology to capture the incidence of poverty. Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a...
More »UNHRC: India dilutes censure motion before voting with West against Sri Lanka
-The Economic Times India on Thursday voted in favour of a US-sponsored censure motion against Sri Lanka in the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The government's domestic political compulsions seems to have prevailed over the country's strategic interests. Twenty-four countries, including India, voted for the resolution and 15 against, while eight nations abstained. Among the countries which voted against the resolution were China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives. India's decision was...
More »