There is evidence to show that growth is slowly becoming inclusive. But for the quality of life to improve, incomes must be complemented by infrastructure. For close to at least five years now inclusive growth has had a central place in the official discourse on the economy. The UPA II has itself worn its self-proclaimed success in delivering an inclusive growth as a badge of its effectiveness, not to mention its...

The Planning Commission drew flak when it calculated that if an urban person spent 28 per head every day and someone in rural areas spent 22, that was enough to consider them to be above the poverty line. These figures are based on consumption expenditure data collected in the 66th round of NSSO for 2009-10. From these new estimates, using the Tendulkar Committee methodology, the number of poor in 2009-10 was...

-The United Nations The world must tackle the urgent challenge of ending hunger if it is to ensure a model of development that is sustainable over the long term, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stressed today. “We cannot call development sustainable if we are leaving almost one in every seven people behind, victims of undernourishment,” Director-General José Graziano da Silva told participants at FAO’s biennial regional...

-IANS Nearly 56 percent of families in Bihar have a mobile or landline connection, but about 77 percent of the population lack toilets, says a census report, highlighting the paradoxes in the state which has taken big leaps in development but also lagged behind in key areas. "Till 2001, only 2.2 percent families were using any kind of telecom facility in Bihar, now over half of its population owns a phone, as...

A classroom reflecting life's diversity will benefit children of all strata while enriching teaching experience. Now that the Supreme Court has validated the Right to Education (RTE), its success will depend on teachers. When I said this to a friend who teaches in a primary school, she said, “you are being unfair.” I was startled to hear this response because what I had said was common sense. When I pointed this...