A global human rights organisation Monday appealed to the central government to enact strict laws to check honour killings and ensure prosecution of those involved in caste-based violence. The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said murders to protect the 'honour' of a family or a community have increased in the recent months in Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. This religion-based, caste-based violence should be stopped by taking stern action against local...

The public distribution system (PDS) has failed to deliver on its objectives in many parts of the country. It would then seem appropriate to dismantle the system immediately and replace it with food coupons or cash transfers to the eligible households. But evidence on ground illustrate that PDS has functioned well for years in southern states such as Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, with majority of the households purchasing...

When flames from an open cooking fire raced through Fida Hussein's shack in northern India, it was a disaster for him and his poverty-stricken family. "We have nothing," said Hussein as he stood in the ruins of his hut through which the sky could be seen between the burnt roof timbers in a remote corner of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state. India's number of millionaires grew by 51 percent...

The mainstream projections about India’s economic trajectory talk of how the country’s GDP will exceed that of Japan (whose economy today is more than thrice India’s size) by 2020. A large part of this sustained growth, it is assumed, will come from what is called the demographic dividend. India’s young and growing workforce, the standard argument goes, will ensure that the country’s wage rates keep it competitive for a long...

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Oxford University today launched a new index to measure poverty levels which they said give a “multidimensional” picture of people living in hardship, and could help target development resources more effectively. The new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, was developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) with UNDP support, the two institutions said in a joint...