-Live Mint   The Musahar communities of eastern UP and Bihar have been unable to escape the trap of desperate poverty India has been conspicuously less successful than many other emerging economies in the scale, speed and depth of its reversal of poverty. But many scholars say that whatever one's measures of poverty, young people on an average have better educational and economic prospects today than those of their parents and grandparents. They...

-The Hindu   India could be overstating poverty levels as the private final consumption estimates captured by the National Income Accounts (NIA) is nearly twice as much as the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) estimates for consumption expenditure of households in 2011-12.   At present, poverty ratios are calculated using the NSSO data. The C. Rangarajan Committee on poverty estimation, that will submit its findings by the month-end, is likely to report that it...

-Live Mint   A key reason for the surge in anti-incumbency faced by UPA has been its failure to curb inflationary pressures New Delhi: A key reason for the surge in anti-incumbency faced by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has been its failure to curb inflationary pressures for most of the regime's second tenure. While inflation based on wholesale prices averaged 6.1% during UPA-1 (2004-2009), it was a percentage point higher at 7.1%...

-Down to Earth   Study published in The Lancet indicates what the country will need to spend to provide basic cancer screening and care to patients A report published in the international journal, The Lancet, has drawn attention to poor infrastructure and treatment facilities for cancer patients in India, which is leading to high cancer mortality. To deliver even a basic cancer screening and treatment package in rural India, 15 states would need to...

-Down to Earth   People of West Bengal's Sunderbans region are setting up grain banks to safeguard against food crisis Subedan Bibi's mud hut is a few metres from the banks of the Bakchara river, a distributary of the Hugli in Sunderbans region of South 24 Parganas. When the river is in spate she and most others of Goyadham village move to the main market in the nearby block. "Floods and storms destroy...