Argumentative Indians are at it again! After sparring over the poverty line and the actual number of poor, India's renowned economists have fired up a fresh debate over the extent of malnutrition. In the earlier debate, the Planning Commission ‘reduced' poverty on paper disregarding NSSO and official committees, including the NCEUS, which determined that 77% Indians survived on less than Rs 20 a day. Columbia university economist Arvind Panagariya has...

-The United Nations A United Nations report released today stresses the importance of providing meals for schoolchildren, particularly in times of crisis, and notes that this is still lacking in many developing countries. "School feeding assures that where quality education is available, children are able to take advantage of the opportunity to learn," said the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin. "It's an investment that pays off in the...

-The Business Standard Why government policy and jobless growth have let inequality worsen in recent times The Forbes list of billionaires features 55 Indians in 2013. The estimated net worth of only the top ten is $102.1 billion or approximately 5.5 per cent of India's gross domestic product. Paradoxically, every third poor person and every second malnourished child in the world is also an Indian. India also adds 7.5 million babies with...

-Stanford Social Innovation Review Looked at from the perspective of the political right, and the left, and the center, the proposed law making CSR mandatory is a really bad idea. Companies all over the world are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that they are responsible citizens, with about 70 percent of large companies in Europe and the Americas reporting on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Despite this, the very concept...

-The Hindustan Times Odisha's Kalahandi district - once the cause of global embarrassment for India due to its high number of starvation deaths - today stands tall with a five-fold increase in its rice production since 1999, figures reveal. The agriculture ministry's recent crop data ranks Kalahandi among the top 25 rice producing districts of India. The three-year average of its rice production ending 2010-11 was 468,000 tonnes, compared with a three-year...