Average per capita net availability of foodgrain declined in every five-year period of the 'reforms' without exception. In the 20 years preceding the reforms — 1972-1991 — it rose every five-year period without exception. The country's total foodgrain production is expected to touch a record 250 million tons this year (2011-12). Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar PTI, February 17, 2012 Record foodgrain output of 235.88 million tons in 2010-11. Sharad Pawar, PTI, April 6, 2011 India's foodgrain...

-PTI Describing the fresh poverty estimates of the Planning Commission as a "dishonest" attempt to conceal reality, CPI(M) today asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to shun these figures and urged him not to use these "fraudulent" estimates to deny poor people of their right to BPL cards. In a statement, the party said even the recently released Household Amenities and Assets Census of 2011 shows the extent of poverty in different spheres...

Sounding a note of caution, the Economic Survey has stressed that for “growth to be inclusive” India must create adequate employment opportunities—a call that underlines existing inequality, including urban-rural income disparity, and concern that it may increase as more young people enter the job market. While India’s unemployment rate has dropped from 8.2% in 2004-05 to 6.6% in 2009-10, the number of jobless is still huge in absolute terms. The...

The world has achieved its first Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty in half ahead of the 2015 deadline, a study by the World Bank shows. The bank defines extreme poverty as living on under $1.25 per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity. According to the report, released this week, 1.29 billion people, or 22 percent of the developing world’s population, live below $1.25 a day, down from 52 percent...

Women farmers suffer gross bias a global meet will look to change this Nearly half of the agricultural work is handled by women in developing countries and India is no exception. Yet, strategies for the development of agriculture are directed primarily at men. Barely five per cent of the extension efforts and resources are targeted at farm women. This failing, predictably, costs a good amount owing to loss of a part...