The Planning Commission’s definition of poverty is inexplicable In the urban sprawl that is Delhi, as in any other metro in the country, earning no more than Rs 25 per day with a family to support would prove nightmarish. Food and clothes have to be bought, there may be school-going children, colds, fevers or upset stomachs to get treated, someone with a chronic problem needing long-term treatment. Surely, someone living...

To prevent Starvation deaths and malnutrition To ensure that no Starvation death takes place and people are saved from malnutrition as far as possible, the Supreme Court on Saturday directed the Centre to release five million tonnes of foodgrains immediately for distribution in 150 most poverty-stricken districts or other poorer segments in the country. Though it was a holiday for the court, a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma held...

50 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat for all States/Union Territories at BPL prices Need to strike a balance between excess procurement and storage: Justice Bhandari ‘Whatever you procure, store it properly. The rest you can distribute to starving people' Responding to the concern expressed by the Supreme Court over malnutrition and Starvation deaths, the Centre on Tuesday informed it of the decision to make an additional allocation of 50 lakh tonnes of...

An urban Indian spending a penny more than Rs 578 a month – roughly Rs 20 a day – on all his basic needs cannot be termed poor and would not receive social benefits and subsidies given by the Centre to BPL citizens, the Planning Commission has said. The commission told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that a city dweller cannot be termed poor if his average monthly spends exceed Rs...

No one has died of Starvation in conflict-hit villages in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, but tribals are 'living with Starvation, in great penury and destitution', the Surpeme Court's Special Commissioner Harsh Mander has submitted in his report. In a strong indictment of the state government as well as Left Wing Extremists, the commissioner has reported that everyone – the security forces, naxals and 'vigilante armed civilian groups' — have unleashed unending cycles...