The proposed Food Security Bill should adopt a three-pronged strategy that constitutes a Universal Public Distribution System for all, low-cost foodgrains to the needy, and convergence in the delivery of nutrition safety net programmes. In his latest budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced: “We are now ready with the draft Food Security Bill which will be placed in the public domain very soon.” Although no official draft has been...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Now, a farmers’ suicide SENSEX by Sadiq Naqvi
Nearly 2 lakh farmers committed suicide in India since 1997. The share of big five states accounted for 1,22,823 suicides in this 12 year period. The data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau points out that 16,196 farmers in India ended their life in 2008. K Nagaraj, an economist, in his report Farmers' suicides in India: Magnitude, Trends and Spatial Patterns, says, "The title to land was taken as the...
More »NREGA schemes check villagers’ exodus to cities by Ruhi Tewari
In Danta village, 15km from Bhilwara city, 30-odd women start filing in at 8.30 am daily to resume work on building a concrete water reservoir. The women are among the 2,000 people in the village who have got work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) since the scheme, promising 100 days of work a year to one adult member of every rural family, was launched two years ago...
More »World Economic Situation bleak
This report is sure to come as a shocker for all those who thought the worst was over after believing that the recession is petering out. The recently released World Economic Situation and Prospects 2010 (WESP) of the United Nations (UN), predicts that the economic growth in the developing world will remain well below the pre-crisis pace of more than 7 per cent per annum. China’s and India’s economies are...
More »No financial crisis impact? India's poor grew by 34 mn by Rukmini Shrinivasan
It's a myth that the global financial crisis left India virtually unscathed. In fact, India is the biggest victim of financial crisis-induced poverty, according to data obtained by TOI from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs' (UNDESA). Check out these figures. The UNDESA data estimates that the number of India's poor was 33.6 million higher in 2009 than would have been the case if the growth rates...
More »