-Live Mint Reducing poverty through growth matters more than reducing inequality Income inequality is back on the radar of politicians and policymakers, if it had disappeared in the first place. The World Economic Forum's Global Risks 2014 report highlighted severe income inequality as one of the top 10 global risks. In a speech in London on Monday, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), paid special attention to...

-The United Nations Urging greater efforts to identify and address the gaps that prevent the most disadvantaged of the world's 2.2 billion children from enjoying their rights, the United Nations released an innovative new report today spotlighting the importance of data in targeting funds and action to reach those who need it most. "Data have made it possible to save and improve the lives of millions of children, especially the most deprived,"...

-Outlook A parliamentary committee has picked holes in the ambitious agriculture debt waiver and debt relief scheme of the UPA government saying it could not achieve its goals due to a variety of reasons including violation of guidelines and poor monitoring. Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in its draft report on the scheme said there was a "flagrant display of financial and administrative indiscipline by the Department of Financial Services (of the...

-Frontline The tussle within some Central government Ministries over proposed cuts in the budget for rural development schemes has affected a promise made to senior citizens. THEIR wizened faces said it all. Though there was disappointment, there was also a glimmer of hope that their trek to the national capital would not go in vain. For almost a month, senior citizens, most of them poor, had been pouring into New Delhi from...

-The Hindu India's long-standing legacies of caste, gender and class antagonism replicate on campuses as well. As higher education moves forward, it does so on these social cleavages The brutal sexual attack on a young woman in Delhi, in 2012, and a savage attack on a girl student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on its campus this year are just two examples of extreme violence that have shocked the nation. Acts of...