-Oxfam Blog Vanita Suneja, Oxfam India's Economic Justice Lead, argues that India can't progress until it tackles rural poverty. This entry was posted on 3 February 2015. More than 800 million of India's 1.25 billion people live in the countryside. One quarter of rural India's population is below the official poverty line - 216 million people. A search for economic justice for a population of this magnitude is never going to be...
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A fuel’s errand -Santosh Mehrotra
-The Indian Express The finance minister plans to scrap the supply of subsidised kerosene through the public distribution system (PDS) and high time, too. To begin with, why has the kerosene subsidy needed reform for decades and yet reform never materialised? Kerosene obtained through the PDS, being cheaper, is used to adulterate diesel and petrol. Kerosene leakages in the PDS are estimated to be 40 per cent of total allocations. The diversion...
More »Cash transfers can plug PDS leakages: study -Puja Mehra
-The Hindu A new study has estimated that 46.7 per cent or 25.9 million metric tonnes (MMTs) of the grains (rice and wheat), released through the PDS, did not reach the intended beneficiaries in 2011-12. In the study, based on the latest NSSO data, by Chair Professor for Agriculture at ICRIER and former Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP), Ashok Gulati and Shweta Saini, Chhattisgarh was the best performing...
More »Reforming FCI or cutting back food security? -Nitin Sethi
-Business Standard The Shanta Kumar Committee on restructuring FCI has suggested the reach of the National Food Security Act be curtailed to 40 per cent of the population The National Democratic Alliance government set up the high-level Shanta Kumar Committee to restructure and reform the state-owned Food Corporation of India. Instead, the panel ended up providing a road map to restructure the entire farming and food security policy of the government. In...
More »US offers clean energy assistance
-The Telegraph New Delhi: The US today pledged financial and technical assistance to help India expand its renewable energy programme, monitor air quality over its cities and improve India-specific climate forecasts among new initiatives on energy and climate. A joint statement issued tonight after delegation-level talks led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama outlined proposed actions that could help India curb its growth of greenhouse gas emissions and...
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