Spiralling prices of pulses have shown India’s dependence on imports. Pulses are integral to India’s diet but not its food policy. As a result, supply cannot meet demand. What are the consequences and solutions? Surendra Nath has switched to eating grass-pea, though he knows it is not good for health. But so is tobacco, he argues. He cannot do without pulses and pigeon-pea selling at Rs 100 a kg is beyond...

The government is likely to raise the income threshold to define the economically weaker section (EWS) to about Rs 6,000 a month from the current Rs 3,300 a month. This will increase EWS numbers by almost 40 per cent. The EWS population benefits from government housing schemes and gets softer interest rates on housing loans from state-owned banks. The move to hike the threshold is based on an internal report...

Statistical poverty lines should not become real-life eligibility criteria for food entitlements.  Nothing is easier than to recognise a poor person when you see him or her. Yet the task of identifying and counting the poor seems to elude the country's best experts. Take for instance the “headcount” of rural poverty — the proportion of the rural population below the poverty line. At least four alternative figures are available: 28...

Monica Das Gupta is a senior social scientist at the World Bank. Her field research in Punjab, when she was at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, established that sex differentials in child mortality in rural Punjab persisted despite relative wealth, socio-economic development including rapid universalization of female education, fertility decline, and mortality decline. Amartya Sen’s writings drew attention to female foeticide and infanticide in Asia that led to...

Likely to be rolled out gradually, in 3 to 6 months from now  Once fully implemented, the scheme may touch the lives of 20 crore women “Highly subsidised” sanitary napkins will be supplied to women above poverty line To boost female health and hygiene in rural India, the Union government is working on a scheme to provide women living below poverty line (BPL) with free sanitary napkins. The scheme, which will eventually...