India’s decision-makers seem to find it difficult to see that there are children in the country. Being unable to see them, they are unable to perceive that they are hungry. In an age when we are able to use euphemisms like ‘under-nutrition’, this is perhaps not surprising. But it is disgraceful none the less.   This country has a large population of children. Fortyone per cent of its total numbers. The national...

-The Times of India Government agencies fear that terror funds are flowing into the real estate sector, apart from a substantial part of the black money generated within the country finding its way into the housing industry. An assessment prepared by revenue intelligence agencies and reviewed by the Finance minister recently reveals that the highest component of undisclosed money detected by the income tax department was from the real estate sector. Officials suspect...

National Sample Survey Organisation's report on the average calorie intake per person in Indian households points to a much higher incidence of poverty in the country than reflected in estimates of the proportion of the population below the official "poverty" line. Among the features that sully India’s “growth story” is the persistence and possible worsening of malnutrition in the country. The subsistence nutritional intake adopted when defining the official poverty line...

Allocation for a child in anganwadi in State is Rs. 4 a day With food prices going northward, a cup of coffee in Bangalore, on an average, costs Rs. 10 today. In such a situation, how well can a child in an anganwadi in Karnataka be fed on an allocation of Rs. 4 per day? While anganwadi workers in Karnataka are struggling to provide nutritious diet to children on Rs. 3.90 (with...

“Huge subsidy on chemical fertilisers unmindful, useless” Small and marginal farmers have raised the demand for special allocation for organic farming and ecological fertilisation in the forthcoming budget, which Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will present on March 16. According to them, chemical fertilisers, the subsidy for which is likely to touch Rs 1 lakh crore in 2011-12,  are not benefitting the soil and are burdening them with high-cost cultivation instead. “The government...