Government undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor households. As a consequence, the BPL survey that was to...

Misleading data cited in a seminar paper on the situation of the minority community in the State tend to detract from the Left Front government's exceptional record on this count. Abusaleh Shariff, the Chief Economist of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, who was the Member-Secretary of the Sachar Committee, presented a paper on the socio-economic development of Muslims in West Bengal, at a seminar organised by the Institute of...

The new bribery revelations, a rigged process to import reactors and safety-related concerns must lead to the long-blocked scrutiny of the nuclear deal by Parliament. The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl raises troubling questions about India's plans for a huge expansion of its nuclear power programme through reactor imports. Given its low per-capita energy consumption, India must generate far more electricity to economically advance. So it needs more nuclear-generated power....

The prestigious Harvard University will honour Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), for her "life and work" that has had a "significant impact on society" . Bhatt (77), whose trade union has helped over a million women in India gain access to opportunities for themselves and their families, will be awarded the Radcliffe Institute Medal by Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She would be presented the medal...

Would you rather buy a necessity like kerosene or food grains at a subsidy or receive an equivalent amount of cash instead? Would you prefer that the government decides your consumption pattern rather than figuring out on your own how to spend your income? One of the “big ticket” reform items in the budget was the announcement that subsidies on kerosene, fertilizers and Liquefied Petroleum Gas and delivery through the Public...