Governments can acquire land for “public purpose” while making sure that the displaced are compensated, relocated and rehabilitated. THE violent conflict over land acquisition in Uttar Pradesh and the persisting resistance to land acquisition for the Posco project in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa are merely recent instances that exemplify the growing stand-off between the Indian state and its people centred on land. On the one side are governments (both Central...

The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...

-The Hindu   “Surveys leading to move are misleading, towing a pre-planned agenda” Opposing the Delhi Government's move to extend a pilot project in the Capital for providing cash subsidies in place of subsidised foodgrains for the needy, a group of non-government organisations led by social activist Arvind Kejriwal has said the decision is “questionable” and that the surveys conducted ahead of the project's implementation were “misleading”. One of these surveys conducted by...

Riding on the determination of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the draft law that will make access to food a constitutional right will be ready within 15 days, a minister said on Monday, even as police detained some members of the National Advisory Council (NAC). “We are in the process of finalizing the draft Bill,” said minister of state for food K.V. Thomas. “I have discussed it (the Right...

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...