-The Indian Express   India’s poor are closely bunched up near the poverty line. This could make poverty alleviation more manageable.    A recent World Bank (WB) report brought out poverty ratios across countries. According to these estimates, poverty in India in 2011-12 could be as low as 12.4 per cent if we use “modified mixed reference period” (MMRP), in which there are three recall periods depending on the nature of items. This...

-The Hindu Business Line Girls start self-help groups in Uttar Pradesh's Amethi and Sultanpur districts to address sanitation issues Combining Self-Help Groups (SHGs) with sanitation programmes is a model that is working well in villages of Amethi and Sultanpur districts of Uttar Pradesh. While the old concept of SHGs was thrift and economic empowerment of women, the more recent formation of young women’s SHGs has strengthened the movement for toilets and sanitary napkins....

Agricultural insurance is supposed to protect farmers from financial hardships and risks when crop losses and damage takes place due to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclone, hailstorms, flood etc. However, in reality this does not hold true in India. Due to the failure of crop insurance schemes in India, there has been a deepening of agrarian crisis and rural distress in the recent times, particularly in the backdrop of...

-The Hindu Business Line As the Right to Information Act completes 10 years, we examine how RTI has changed people’s lives, become a byword for democracy, and helped alter the relationship between citizen and state Mintu Devi’s relationship with the ration shop changed the day she filed an RTI. In the jhuggis of New Seemapuri, situated on the northeastern edge of Delhi, she is a legend. The 37-year-old mother of four is...

-Livemint.com Data on incomes and wealth suggest India is far more unequal than official estimates based on consumption expenditure data suggest Inequality is in the news once again and the news is not particularly good. In a speech last month, Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan commented that increasing inequality could be curtailing world demand. Since the rich typically spend a smaller portion of their income compared with the poor—who spend...