60% of Mumbaiites have micro nutrient deficiency due to poor nutrition, says study Love munching on chips and burgers to home-cooked dal-rice? Prefer those colas to home-made nimbu pani? If yes, here’s some food for thought. According to a study, 60 per cent of Mumbai’s population suffers from deficiency of essential micro-nutrients. Micro nutrients, which include iron, zinc, manganese, calcium, are necessary for good health. The deficiency is caused by unhealthy lifestyles...

-The Business Standard   Much depends on a strong implementation framework but the imposition of a cap by the Planning Commission could lead to arbitrary exclusions. Himanshu Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University The methodology, which is based on the framework suggested by the Saxena Committee, uses indicators that have been refined using a large-scale pilot survey There are over 400 million poor (the number varies depending on which estimate you...

Bringing an aggressive outlook to the ministry of rural development, Jairam Ramesh, who took charge of the portfolio in July, has attempted to address and fast-track contentious issues such as the proposed land acquisition legislation and the census for identifying households below the poverty line (BPL). Ramesh spoke in an interview about his blueprint for the ministry and revisiting controversial elements, including identifying the poor and poverty caps imposed by...

-IANS   Nearly nine million Indian households, or 45 million individuals, saw their incomes rise above the threshold of $1.25 a day, or Rs.56, in the two decades ended 2010, reflecting the success of microfinance, says a survey. "A dramatic number of families moved out of poverty between 1990 and 2010," said the report, based on a survey of more than 15,000 Indian households, carried out by the India Development Foundation (IDF), a...

MFIs in Andhra Pradesh are paying for the sins of their past. Market for new loans has dried up, banks have turned off their spigots while the AP government is content to sit back and watch. It has been eleven months since the Andhra Pradesh government issued an ordinance—later converted into the Andhra Pradesh Micro-Finance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending) Act—which, the microfinance industry hoped, would be the magic remedy that...