The word ‘hunger’ does not appear in the 12th Plan Approach Paper even once, whereas according to the latest Global Hunger Index Report, India continues to be in the category of those nations where hunger is ‘alarming’. What is worse, India is one of the three countries where the hunger index between 1996 and 2011 has gone up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries...

-The Business Standard   Latest HDR a poor report card for India The good news from the Human Development Report, or HDR, for 2011 is that India’s rank – 134 out of 187 – has remained unchanged. If we look at countries relevant to India – fellow BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa) and India’s neighbours (Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) – four have held their positions and three countries have...

Seeking information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act is all set to get easier. Adding a “smart” layer to the process of applying for information, the Karnataka Government has decided to set up a business process outsourcing centre to handle all applications, enquiries, and even billing. Streamlining the entire process through a website and a call centre, this project, which is pending Cabinet approval, will simplify the current application process...

What is government planning to do with the Public Distribution System (PDS)? The answer lies in an old adage: Give a dog bad name and hang him! The common impression is that the PDS is not working because of pilferage and hence it is taken as a foregone conclusion that it needs to be replaced with cash transfer. Two empirical studies conducted recently, one of them by noted economists Jean Dreze...

-The Indian Express   The rain gods seem to have ignored the once-fertile region of Sambalpur with farmers fighting drought for the third successive cultivating season. The drought situation led yet another farmer of Western Orissa to end his life, third in a week. The two deaths earlier this week were reported from Bargarh district. On Friday, a 25-year-old farmer, Samir Kumar Naik of Ramtileimal village in Paruabhadi gram panchayat under Kuchinda block...