-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India may have reduced extreme poverty far more effectively than most of us are aware of. The last official data is eight years old. In 2011, 268 million people were surviving on less than $1.90 a day, the World Bank measure for extreme poverty. The next round of data on household consumption is likely to come out in June, and it may well show a...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘Centre has presented 5 full-fledged Budgets, does not have the legitimacy for a sixth’ The Congress alleged on Thursday that the Centre is planning to present a full-fledged Budget violating all Parliamentary conventions, procedures and traditions. It maintained that the Narendra Modi government neither has the “electoral mandate” nor the “electoral legitimacy” to present six full Budgets in five years. Talking to reporters, former minister and senior Congress spokesperson...

-Scroll.in Trade unionists fear a large part of the unorganised sector might be left out of the ambit of the government’s labour code on social security. Rekha Patil, a vegetable seller on a footpath in suburban Mumbai, is a small part of India’s vast informal economy. Her husband, a farmer in Palghar, about 110 km north of Mumbai, has an unreliable income. But Patil’s earnings of Rs 350 a day barely sustain...

-Frontline.in Interview with Aruna Roy. ARUNA ROY is a well-known social and political activist. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, she resigned from the IAS in 1975 and has since worked with the most oppressed in society. Aruna Roy’s observation on government service is indicative of her future concerns: “Everyone calls it an elite service; I always felt the discourse should be a bit better than what it was. I was shocked...

-The Pioneer Government policies for the pulses sector have helped overcome multiple challenges. Effective implementation of an integrated module can solve most farm problems Agricultural transformation is high on everybody’s agenda today. Various stakeholders, including experts, policy-makers and political executives, have expressed their views on how to move forward with agricultural policies so that our farmers can prosper. However, performance of policies and strategies that are already in their implementation stage will...