Chastened by the 'poverty line' controversy painting the Centre as insensitive to 'aam aadmi', the government is wary of challenging a Karnataka high court order which slammed the state for paying MGNREGA workers less than the minimum farm wages.  The court said that job scheme wages could not be less than the minimum agricultural wages and ordered that workers be paid the arrears.  The HC order would put an additional burden of...

The state's rice bowl is left empty An unviable minimum support price (MSP) for rice has forced farmers in Andhra Pradesh to leave their lands fallow. The movement is spreading to other states. “Farming never pays” is a familiar slogan among agriculturists across the world, and especially so in India. Nevertheless, many continue to cultivate their fields year after year, barely eking out an existence, toiling in the hope that the tide...

-The Times of India   Close on the heels of an application by Delhi Special Police Establishment, popularly known as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to add it as a party in the petition pending before the Kerala High Court challenging the exemption of central investigation agencies from the purview of Right to Information Act, 2005, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also approached the court to make it a party. When...

It will be a mistake to assume that the food security bill, in its present form, will necessarily and sharply reduce India’s embarrassingly high rates of child malnutrition. Satiating hunger and providing nutrients that are essential for healthy growth and fitness are not quite the same thing, a fact highlighted by the leading medical journal Lancet in a recent research paper. The article says the prevalence of anaemia in India...

The $12 billion Posco investment in India was supposed to be the biggest FDI project in the country. After six years that still remains on paper Horangineun jugeumyeon gajugeul namgigo, Sarameun jugeumyun ireumeul namginda (When tigers die, they leave behind leather. When people die, they leave their names behind) —Old Korean Proverb The news flash from Press Trust of India came on July 10, 2011. Posco, the $32 billion South Korean steel giant had decided to...