-The Business Standard It is not in the interest of food companies to advertise what their products contain, but it is in our interest to know Junk food is junk by its very definition. But how bad is it and what is it that companies do not tell people about this food? This is what the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) laboratory checked. The results were both predictable and alarming....
More »SEARCH RESULT
Flagships adrift -Jayati Ghosh
The ICDS' plight is symptomatic of the problems plaguing the Union government's flagship schemes for the poor all over the country. INDIA may be the only country in the world where we describe the ensuring of the basic socio-economic rights of the people in terms of “flagship schemes” that are seen as the benevolent contribution of governments. One problem with this approach is that the delivery of basic services is...
More »On the Recent Poverty Estimates-Himanshu
An unnecessary controversy has been started by the release of the poverty estimates of 2009-10 by the planning commission. The controversy, which was entirely avoidable, was allowed to go on because of the poor handling of the issue by the planning commission. It is unfortunate that the planning commission was less than willing to own the Tendulkar committee report which was submitted in December 2009 and accepted by the commission...
More »For two Tihar Jail inmates, freedom for seven hours every day-Geeta Gupta
In the ninth year of his 10-year term in Tihar, 25-year-old Anil is savouring a taste of what life might soon be for him. Between 11 am and 6 pm, Anil is free — free to roam around the 450-acre prison complex and work at Tihar Haat, to enter which he actually steps out of the prison gate. Anil is one of two prisoners made a part of Tihar’s semi-open jail...
More »India undercounts its poor-Himanshu
Critics are wrong when they say poverty has not declined. However, they are right, unknowingly though, when they say that the Planning Commission has not been entirely forthcoming about how it arrived at the poverty estimates it put out last week. The commission seems to have quietly tweaked the consumption data for 2009-10 used to estimate poverty. Hence, not only has it undercounted the poor in 2009-10 by some 18 million,...
More »