Can we agree in this country on a floor of human dignity below which we will not allow any human being to fall? No child, woman or man in this land will sleep hungry. No person shall be forced to sleep under the open sky. No parent shall send their child out to work instead of to school. And no one shall die because they cannot afford the cost of...
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Suresh Tendulkar, eminent economist, passes away by Ashok Dasgupta
He played a significant role in framing economic policy He estimated that every third Indian is living in poverty Did extensive work on credit and privatisation policies With the demise of Suresh Tendulkar at the age of 72 following a cardiac arrest in Pune on Tuesday, the country has lost yet another eminent economist who played a significant part in moulding the government's economic policy making. A Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and...
More »Undermining people’s power - A story of five years by Nikhil Dey
More than five years have passed since the world’s largest employment programme was launched in India. The scale of employment generated was not the only reason that this is a path breaking legislation. The MGNREGA is the first national law to establish rights in the development sector. It is demand based, and not constrained by arbitrary and restrictive selections like the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list. Any person living in a...
More »Centre seeks States' views on Food Security Bill by K Balchand
Gearing for the challenge of implementing the proposed Food Security Bill, Union Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas has decided to hold a conference of Chief Ministers to seek their views and cooperation. Mr. Thomas toldThe Hindu that he had made a presentation of the proposed Bill to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh...
More »Brinda: why exclude the disabled from BPL? by Aarti Dhar
Brinda Karat, Rajya Sabha member and Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member, has protested against non-inclusion of disabled persons in the automatic inclusion category for the 2011 below the poverty line (BPL) census being conducted by the Rural Development Ministry. In a letter to Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, she has drawn attention to the May 2, 2003 Supreme Court order, in which the disabled have been listed in...
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