To help the poor, there must be one agreed way of identifying them first. If perceptions differ regarding who is poor and, thus, how many poor people there are, it will be difficult to select the right institutional measures and the amount of money to be spent on poverty eradication programmes. The differences between the findings of the N.C. Saxena report and and the Planning Commission’s assessment of the below-the-poverty-line...

Southern Kerala state is known for the lush expanses of cardamom, pepper, tea and rubber that grow on its misty hills, and the bountiful catches of fish on a coastline punctuated by lagoons and backwaters. But a cloud in the form of a a free trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc hovers over this picture of plenty. With the Indo-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) now...

India has recently witnessed the release of two important environment reports just before the Copenhagen Summit to be held in December, 2009. The National State of the Environment India (SoE) Report 2009 was launched on 11 August, 2009 by Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh. Another report titled United Nation’s World Economic and Social Survey (WESS) Report 2009 was released in early September, 2009 by Sunita Narain, Director, Centre...

Food security in India is getting more and more dependent on annual monsoons. In a year of low rainfall, a large section of the people, especially those below the poverty line, have to depend on subsidised government food rations. If this situation continues, the country will be stressed for resources to provide food for the people. Coping with water shortage from failed monsoons is somewhat similar to coping with an...

The time has come for a comprehensive right-to-food law to tackle the deprivation and food insecurity that haunts India.  Over the last decade or so, a series of developments have drawn attention to the problem of food security. These are the persistence of hunger in many parts of the country being juxtaposed with food surpluses and stocks; the adverse impact of globalisation on agriculture and rising food prices resulting in...