The glitter of growth has added little sparkle to the lives of many peasants and rural workers. Deprivation, discrimination, and disadvantage dominate the everyday lives of large sections in rural Andhra Pradesh, an important new study*finds.  Village studies highlight features of society that are often overlooked and overshadowed by macro-studies of the economy. A recent study presents extraordinarily rich, unusually detailed and intensely disturbing data on agrarian relations, livelihoods, economic...

India’s record in providing education to its children has been very poor. Low education levels have an impact on income, productivity, health status and standard of living. As per 2001 Census, the overall literacy rate of India is still only 65.4%, with many states having a literacy rate less than the national average. While the male literacy rate is around 76%, only about 54% females are literate1. What is important...

A ratings exercise on sanitation levels in 423 cities across India has revealed that as many as 380 cities collect and treat less than 40% of their sewage, while only 24 collect more than four-fifths the solid waste generated within the cities. The ratings, which were announced in 2009, were presented by urban development minister Jaipal Reddy on Monday. Chandigarh, Mysore, Surat and the New Delhi Municipal Corporation-administered Delhi were ranked as...

To perpetuate a system that assigns a household to a single BPL/APL category in circumstances in which poverty is multi-dimensional is not only bad economics, but unconscionable as well.  The pilot surveys for the next Census of BPL (below-poverty-line) households are due to begin. Discussions are now on to finalise the methodology for the survey, and as the BPL Census is a matter of the subsistence and survival of hundreds...

More people in India, the world's second most crowded country, have access to a mobile telephone than to a toilet, according to a new UN study on how to cut the number of people with inadequate sanitation. "It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of...