-The Economic Times In the leaky system of welfare delivery, databases are the newest valve that governments are installing to ensure that benefits reach those-and only those -they are intended for. Since December 2012, for instance, the government of Madhya Pradesh has been appending on to the Centre's Socio Economic and Caste Census a host of household-level data: bank account numbers, NREGA card numbers, welfare entitlements, land ownership, whether their house is...
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Missing the woods for the greenback-Praveen Bhargav
-The Hindu The draft policy on the use of forest land is at odds with sound conservation principles and fails to plug holes in current guidelines that work to the advantage of project promoters The Supreme Court in July 2011 while delivering the Lafarge Judgment laid down guidelines on forest clearance procedures. These were to operate till a new regulatory mechanism was put in place. Two years after the judgment, the Ministry...
More »UPA’s showpiece cash plan flops in Congress bastion -Chetan Chauhan
-The Hindustan Times The UPA's showpiece direct benefits transfer (DBT) plan is struggling. Poor Aadhaar enrolment clubbed with lack of banking facilities is coming in the way of the anti-poverty programme. Numbers are telling. Two months after the roll out in Rae Bareli, the constituency of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, only Rs. 1,400 has been transferred in Rae Bareli. The district has 6,000 people enlisted for the National Social Security Programme....
More »Where have all the women gone? -Vani S Kulkarni, Manoj K Pandey and Raghav Gaiha
-The Hindu Overcoming son preference in India remains a daunting challenge as even educated women are prone to it Have women fared better than men, and girls better than boys in the last decade or so? In the din over a dramatic reduction in poverty in the period 2009/10-2011/12 that is unlikely to die down, deep questions about the discrimination and deprivation that women face from the womb to the rest of...
More »Irrational poverty figures -Devinder Sharma
-Deccan Herald My house help asked me the other day: "Sahib ji, TV news tells me those earning more than Rs 1,000 a month are not poor. How can this be true? Although I am earning Rs 5,000 every month working at your home, I mop up your floor and wash your dishes. If I was rich why should I be doing cleaning job here?" Mohan used to be a helper in...
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