India grapples with endemic backwardness in over 200 districts while some sectors and sections make global headlines. The Centre on Market Solutions to Poverty's report, Creating Vibrant Public-Private-Panchayat Partnerships for Inclusive Growth through Inclusive Governance explores this paradox by looking at the ground-level realities in local governance through the Panchayati Raj, the issues of agricultural productivity and value addition, and the role that the business sector could play in rural...

Food security is currently being much discussed in the context of the proposed National Food Security Bill. Food security is the consistent access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food so that the basic dietary needs are met to ensure an individual can lead a healthy life. Food activists justifiably argue that the proposed 25 kg rice per person per month is insufficient and that it be given only to families...

Is India’s brand new Seed Bill capable of protecting the farmers' livelihoods? Or will it compromise their interest by allowing multinational seed companies to have a free run of the Indian seed market? The new Bill seeks to regulate the seed market and improve the quality of seeds as well as to harmonise and update the old policies in line with the current international practices for production, supply and for...

Freebies for the IPL — at a time of savage food subsidy cuts for the poor — benefit four men who make the Forbes Billionaire List of 2010 and a few other, mere multi-millionaires.  And so the IPL fracas is now heading for its own Champions League. Union Cabinet Ministers, Union Ministers of State, Chief Ministers (and who knows a Governor or two might pop up yet) are being named...

An inquiry committee appointed by the Supreme Court to look into the functioning of the public distribution system has just turned in a damning report to the effect that the system is riddled with corruption and has virtually collapsed in some states. This observation will not come as a surprise to most people. Indeed, it is not a coincidence that even the Central government’s own Economic Survey mentions the need...