-The Business Standard Terming the debate over poverty numbers of a poor Quality, chief economic advisor in the finance ministry Kaushik Basu today said even if different yardsticks were adopted, roughly the same conclusions would be drawn on decline in the number of people below the poverty line, between 2004-05 and 2009-10, as was estimated by the Planning Commission. The decline in the number during the period was the sharpest in any...

-The Business Standard Public discussion on falling poverty hits a new low The Lok Sabha was adjourned for a short duration on Wednesday following an uproar over the government’s latest figures for poverty. This follows widespread public outrage at those figures. A dispassionate observer of this discussion may be led to conclude that either poverty has risen dramatically or the government has somehow fudged the figures inexcusably and obviously. Elsewhere perhaps,...

Poor utilization of funds and irregular disbursals have been cited as the reasons for India’s school education system failing to show desired improvement even as the government has more than doubled funds for education programmes in the past two years. The government has spent just 70% of the funds allocated for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (education for all) and Right to Education in 2010-11 compared with 78% in the year earlier, according...

The first-ever India Human Development Awards Manav Vikas were announced in New Delhi. Kottayam in Kerala, Khargone in Madhya Pradesh; Udupi in Karnataka and Malda in West Bengal have been recognized for excellence in the Quality of Human Development Reports for their districts. The overall award for excellence went to West Bengal with two districts amongst the eight finalists.  The Manav Vikas India Human Development Awards, instituted by the Planning Commission...

Some 134 private management institutes have this year sought technical education regulator AICTE’s permission to close down citing a lack of students, strengthening a trend that began last year. Government academics blamed the dwindling student interest in these private institutes on the “substandard education” they offer. B- school promoters, however, put the blame on the AICTE, saying the way it had allowed private management colleges to mushroom had led to supply...