The sixth meeting of the National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Saturday finalised its recommendations to address the problems of hunger and malnutrition in the country. Some of the important recommendations: - Legal entitlements to subsidised foodgrains should be extended to 90 percent rural population and 50 percent urban population. - The priority households should have a monthly entitlement of 35 kg at a subsidised price of Re.1 per kg...

The Punjab Government Thursday requested the Reserve Bank of India that it should impress upon Public Sector banks to aggressively promote Agricultural Debt Swap scheme to free the farmers from the clutches of moneylenders. The Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal raised this issue when Dr. D. Subbarao, Governor, RBI today called on him. The Deputy Chief Minister impressed upon the Governor that the Punjab farmers reeling under Rs....

The Aadhaar or UID project has grave implications for every Indian. It will enable the government to profile every citizen and track their movements and transactions. There is no guarantee that intimate personal information -- pre-existing illnesses, romantic relationships etc -- won't be shared with other agencies, warns Praful Bidwai. An elaborate charade has begun with the rolling out of the first Aadhaar unique identity numbers in a tribal district of Maharashtra by...

  The sea change that India’s national scheme for rural employment guarantee has accomplished is hard to fathom, its vastness touching the lives or more than 100 million people. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (NREGA, subsequently renamed after Mahatma Gandhi, or MGNREGA) was a landmark in Indian legislation. Under the act, as of April 2008, for the first time in India’s history, all rural citizens have a legal right...

Considerable sections of the urban population may face serious food insecurity even while the urban economy grows. There is a need for urgent action on this front. Over the two decades of rapid growth of the Indian economy, the urban economy is generally perceived as having done very well. However, high urban economic growth need not by itself imply improved living standards for all urban residents. In particular, the recent and...