United Nation Development Programme's India Urban Poverty Report, 2009 has pegged the number of slum dwellers in Uttar Pradesh at 44 lakh. The sample survey, which was conducted under the 58th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation, also suggests that UP is next only to Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, where 1.2 crore and 52 lakh urban poor are apparently living. The high numbers, however, it appears, are not the only...

‘Break the nexus between builders and politicians' 'Land being grabbed from poor through malpractices' Social activist Medha Patkar and over 50 others were detained for some time by the police here on Tuesday after they barged into the Adarsh housing society and staged a protest, demanding the demolition of the building and the scrapping of Rule 3K under the Maharashtra Slum Act. “Adarsh is the symbol of their paradigm of development. They don't...

Key issue will be legal guarantees for food entitlements for “general” category In what looks like more trouble for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has decided to take head on the Rangarajan committee's criticism of its now-controversial recommendations on food security. It will take the first step by presenting a point-by-point rebuttal of the panel's critique to the new Food Minister, K.V. Thomas, on...

Thousands of children and women die every year in India due to lack of access to basic healthcare. Why is it that, in the Mecca of medical tourism, the poor continue to be denied the right to health? A national television channel had a 30-minute special recently on how private hospitals are denying free medical treatment to poor patients. Under a quota, private hospitals are expected to provide medical treatment...

New CRZ notification sparks off fears, upsets fisherfolk The new Coastal Zone Regulation (CRZ) 2011 which has opened up construction along the sea has sparked off fears of Mumbai being ringed with high rises and mutating into a ‘desi' Manhattan. It has triggered furious debates on development and upset the fisherfolk who are planning to hit the streets across the country to agitate for better coastal protection. Since 1991 when the first...