President Pratiba Patil today said the Centre is consulting state governments on the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), which will give the poor a legal entitlement to subsidised foodgrains. “The states are being consulted as the success of the programme (NFSA) hinges critically on their commitment to reforms in the public distribution system (PDS),” Ms. Patil said in her address to Parliament to mark the beginning of the Budget Session. The...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has imposed a gag on India’s poverty data, saying no information must go out until it is vetted by the Planning Commission. The gag order applies to all central ministries and departments and is apparently triggered by the embarrassment over multiple data on Indians falling under the socially damning Below poverty Line (BPL). The official line is that the government wants to have uniformity on all data and...

Unlike the educated elite who go Westwards, attracted by better opportunities and a luxurious lifestyle, those who land up in West Asia as waged labourers have a much harder time: Practically no rights, hostile working environments and absolutely no support systems. Why is it that the violation of their basic rights doesn't figure at all in the national imagination? About the same time that India aired “absolute displeasure and concern” over...

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) completed five years this month. Pandurni village, in Nanded district in Maharashtra, is in high spirits. It has won the award for best performance in implementing the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for 2009-10. Around 1,500 people from this village are registered under this scheme, and over 800 have benefitted from it. Yahswant Suryavanshi is one of them. This owner of two hectares of agricultural land says...

Even four years after the Sachar Committee Report revealed that Muslims were one of the most economically backward and socially disadvantaged communities, nothing much has been done to address the development deficits of this community. The Constitution of the republic of free India was crafted in troubled but idealistic times. The Indian people were still reeling from Partition bloodshed and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, in the dark shadows of politics...