Experts show how electricity for poor people is possible Is electricity for all a pipe dream? Should we forget about electricity for all until we are able to provide more basic amenities like drinking water, nutritious food, education and healthcare?   India is home to the largest number of people without electricity. Half of Indian households do not have access to power, which constitute a third of the world's population without electricity. Though...

The government will soon have to decide on the proposal of direct cash payments in lieu of food subsidy as a key committee of Parliament has asked the ministries concerned to decide quickly on the issue. This cash payment through smart cards is increasingly being seen as an option to prevent leakage in the public distribution system (PDS), and certain variants of the system are already being experimented with by...

Tribal-dominated Raygada district in Orissa on Wednesday became the first district in the country to have biometric rations cards and bar-coded ration cards for its million plus population. Designed jointly by the state government and the World Food Programme (WFP), the hi-tech biometric registration system aims to ensure that subsidised food goes only to those entitled to it. The district has been chosen as a pilot district by the World Food...

The 2010 Seeds Bill that has been introduced in Parliament does address some of the major concerns in the aborted 2004 version, but strangely a number of important correctives – on regulation, consistency and punishment – that had been incorporated in the 2008 version (which lapsed in 2009) have now been modified or dropped altogether. What forces are pushing the government to act against the interests of India’s farmers? The third...

The rise in global wheat prices by almost 50% in less than two months as commodity markets factor in a sharp drop in exportable surplus has not touched India, among world’s biggest producers and consumers of wheat. What’s more surprising, domestic futures prices too are unlikely to show any appreciable rise, going by the trend in India’s commodity markets. Barring minor blips, August and September wheat futures at NCDEX, largest exchange for...