-San Francisco Chronicle   Bihar's chief minister, Nitish Kumar, who runs India's poorest and one of its most corrupt regions, announced a novel bid to tackle endemic poverty: taking the state's bureaucrats out of governing. His administration placed advertisements in newspapers this week, seeking a team of professionals to manage a $1.3 billion annual budget for programs involving job creation, housing, infrastructure and microfinance. In Bihar, a state of 103 million people in...

The Planning Commission’s latest affidavit to the Supreme Court in the right to food case reveals it has not taken the court’s advice to revise the thresholds and spending that determine the poverty line, although the commission admits to spiralling food costs and inflation. The affidavit was filed in a public interest litigation being pursued by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, which wants the government’s threshold of Rs. 12 and...

-The Times of India   National Advisory Council (NAC) member Aruna Roy lashed out at the Planning Commission's new criteria for poverty line submitted to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. "This affidavit reflects the government's deep lack of empathy for the poor and a perspective completely divorced from reality," she said. Roy was reacting to the Plan panel's submission to the Supreme Court, saying if a person's spending exceeds Rs 32 a day in...

-The Times of India   Facing a political storm over its poverty line prescription, the government decided to revise the Rs 32 a day expenditure criteria for urban population (Rs 26 for rural) by factoring in the 2009-10 National Sample Survey Organization report on household spend. The pittance outlined in the Planning Commission affidavit before the Supreme Court left the government squirming as the BJP and Left attacked it for framing poverty guidelines...

-The Hindu   The government on Tuesday extended the terms of reference of the Nilekani task force on direct transfer of subsidies to include an Aadhaar-enabled unified payment infrastructure. Set up by the Union Finance Ministry under the chairmanship of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chief Nandan Nilekani in February, the task force was asked to recommend and implement a solution for direct transfer of subsidies on kerosene, LPG and fertiliser to...