THE DEBATE on the National Food Security Bill, tabled in parliament three months ago, is on full swing. Economists from both sides are arming their arguments with facts and logic. The people who would benefit of this legislation are in a dilemma. This prompts the consideration that the experts must try to see the issue from the ground reality of food security and its beneficiaries. Undoubtedly, it’s a great and historical...

-PTI Describing the fresh poverty estimates of the Planning Commission as a "dishonest" attempt to conceal reality, CPI(M) today asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to shun these figures and urged him not to use these "fraudulent" estimates to deny poor people of their right to BPL cards. In a statement, the party said even the recently released Household Amenities and Assets Census of 2011 shows the extent of poverty in different spheres...

Montek Singh says he is willing to revise poverty estimates on the basis of expert opinion Though the incidence of poverty has come down over five years from 2004-05 to 2009-10, it is a startling fact that inequality has increased, with fewer people controlling income. Union Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia admitted on Tuesday that income distribution was not at the desired level and inequality increased in both rural and...

-The Economic Times Data released by the Planning Commission on Monday showed that poverty had significantly declined between 2004-05 and 2009-10. The catch is that this decline is based on a poverty line that is even lower than the earlier Rs 32-per-day mark that had triggered an outrage when the government submitted it to the Supreme Court.  The new estimates are based on a poverty line that averages Rs 672.8 per month...

-The Telegraph Guwahati may be waiting for its Mercedes Benz debut but the state’s poor have become poorer in the past five years, with Assam and four other states of the Northeast recording a rise in poverty levels, Planning Commission figures revealed today. Assam now has 116.4 lakh persons living below the poverty line, Manipur 12.5 lakh, Meghalaya 4.9 lakh, Mizoram 2.3 lakh, Tripura 6.3 lakh, Nagaland 4.1 lakh and Arunachal Pradesh...