In a bid to instil a sense of belonging among people living in the Naxal-affected states of jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, the government is considering the inclusion of 185 castes in the Central list of OBCs, which will entitle them to a slew of benefits. Sources in the government said, “A proposal to this effect from the ministry of social justice is high on the agenda of the Union Cabinet, which will...

Even as India once more self-declares its “arrival on the world stage” with a symbol for the Indian rupee, a global assessment presents a depressing picture of India’s actual economic performance. In a study whose conclusions were to be expected, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHDI) has revealed that an appropriate index of poverty (and deprivation) finds its incidence in India and elsewhere to be much greater than...

THE fast-depleting groundwater levels and subsidised electricity supply to farmers in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh spell doom for agricultural productivity in the region regarded as the “Food Bowl of India”, and has prompted the government to turn its gaze towards the eastern region for fulfilling its food security ambitions. A background note drafted by the department of agriculture and cooperation (DoAC) for the two-daylong workshop on the theme...

Contesting government figures, several MPs on Monday stressed that the number of manual scavengers still left in the country was much higher than what was furnished by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment — 1.17 lakh. At a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry, they pointed out that this figure did not square with the much larger number of proposals received by the Ministry of Housing...

Thousands of poor village youths can now hope to become BPO workers with Ignou training. The Indira Gandhi National Open University will train an estimated 45,000 rural youths from below-poverty-line (BPL) families in the areas of telecommunications, business process outsourcing (BPO) and security. It will also teach them soft skills — such as basic spoken English and etiquette — to make easy their shift from agrarian backgrounds to an industry environment. At the...