A couple of years ago a colleague came into my office with what he thought was a definite typographic error: “It says that India won only three medals in the Olympics; that cannot be right — there is a billion people in India.” I had to break it to him that this was actually the most medals India ever won in a single Olympic game. India has an average of...

IN PATNI, a remote village in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh, sevenmonth- old Sandeep is playing in the mud. He finds a pumpkin seed in the dust and promptly puts it into his mouth. A tiny piece of cow dung, a pebble, a fallen leaf and finally the sole of a rubber slipper follow the pumpkin seed. For Sandeep and the children in the 300- odd families in the village,...

Nearly 65% of class V students in rural areas of Tamil Nadu can’t read even a class II textbook in their mother tongue, 45% don’t know subtraction and nearly 81% can’t read simple English sentences, the Annual Status of Education Report for 2009, compiled by Delhi-based NGO Pratham Foundation, has revealed. The findings of the survey, which had a sample size of 33,000 students in both private and government schools,...

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...

THE FLAGSHIP scheme of UPA II, the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), has become a policymaker’s nightmare. If suggestions by the Finance Ministry (reportedly at the instance of Congress President Sonia Gandhi) and the state governments are incorporated, the yearly food grain requirement would be close to 80 million tonnes. But considering food grain procurement in an average year is 40 to 41 million tonnes — half the amount...