The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), the pioneer of supercomputing in the country, is now assisting the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to establish a national agricultural bioinformatics grid. The initiative, the first of its kind in the country, will help scientists enhance agricultural productivity and address problems of food security. Under the project, a three-day training-cum-workshop on ‘parallel and high performance computing’ began at C-DAC on Monday, with...

When noted economist Jean Dreze visited Surguja in Chhattisgarh a decade ago, its utterly non-functional Public Distribution System (PDS) looked like especially “designed to fail.” The National Advisory Committee member has written in a recent article that the ration shop owners illegally sold the grain meant for the poor and “hunger haunted the land.” But that was then. The economist was pleasantly shocked to see the transformation this time. “Ten years...

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...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is confident that the NREGS is his best bet to offset the drought but many grassroots activists are unsure of the scheme’s effectiveness, especially after some recent amendments. While the drought has spread to 246 districts, a heated debate rages on the poor peoples’ entitlements versus rural asset formation, even though in theory the two positions appear complementary. 14 organisations throughout the country are up in arms...

KEY TRENDS    • The total number of civilians killed and injured during police firing in 2016 was 92 and 351, respectively. The total number of civilians killed and injured during police lathi-charge in 2016 was 35 and 759, respectively #$   • In 2015, the NCRB recorded over 73 lakh complaints of cognizable crimes. Cognizable crimes are relatively serious offences for which police officers do not need a warrant from the magistrate to investigate, such...