-The Economic Times The rationale for embedding nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programmes in a development agenda is compelling. And yet, strangely, it has been ignored. Planning and implementation of such programmes require collaborative, consistent and aligned effort across multiple sectors. Currently, we have a myopic vision to pursue narrow agendas. Transformational change requires tackling one of the most obdurate challenges: malnutrition. This blight has a large human impact and a larger economic impact...

-The Guardian India's PM points to Gujarat as an emblem of economic success. But despite impressive growth, the state lags behind on welfare Narendra Modi has just unveiled his first budget after winning a massive electoral victory on a development platform. The budget presented last week has disappointed those who were expecting stronger signals about a pro-market shift in economic policy, as well as in the stock market. However, the budget has...

-Counterview.net Latest report on measuring poverty authored by a committee headed by former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor C Rangarajan, has found that as many as 11 major Indian states out of 20 have fewer percent of poor than Gujarat. Submitted to the Modi government as a plea to come up with a new poverty criterion that takes into account "public expenditure that is being incurred in areas like education,...

-The Hindu Business Line   Over 340 million destitute people live here, mostly in rural areas NEW DELHI: India is home to over 340 million destitute people and is the second poorest country in South Asia after strife-torn Afghanistan, says a poverty estimation study by Oxford University, UK.   Forty per cent of all poor in 49 countries live in India, mostly in rural areas, according to the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2014, a tool...

-Down to Earth   Poverty line figures hide people's aspirations There are lies, damn lies and statistics, American author Mark Twain once wrote echoing a similar statement by the British statesman Benjamin Disraeli. Statistics aim to reveal a lot, but they conceal vital information. This concealing tendency of statistics explains much of the flak received by the Planning Commission when it released figures on the poverty line. In 2012, the commission announced that...