Unimpressed by the progress made under the well-known KBK assistance plan, where over Rs 1,600 crore has been spent over the last decade, a concerned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Planning Commission to immediately carry out a fresh time-bound re-evaluation of the programme with special focus on the state of poverty and hunger. The Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput region of Orissa, which has over the years been divided...

Tens of millions of dollars have been diverted in India from schemes to fight poverty and used to fund Delhi's Commonwealth Games, a report says. The Housing and Land Rights Network pressure group says its report is based on official documents obtained under India's right to information act. The group says there should be an independent inquiry into how this was allowed to happen. Government officials in Delhi say they are...

The glitter of growth has added little sparkle to the lives of many peasants and rural workers. Deprivation, discrimination, and disadvantage dominate the everyday lives of large sections in rural Andhra Pradesh, an important new study*finds.  Village studies highlight features of society that are often overlooked and overshadowed by macro-studies of the economy. A recent study presents extraordinarily rich, unusually detailed and intensely disturbing data on agrarian relations, livelihoods, economic...

It’s probably the biggest scam in Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Scheme (MNREGS) in Rajasthan. Its exposes the ways, this flagship scheme of the UPA govt. at the centre is being plagued by embezzlement, fraud and forgery at the grassroots. The office bearers of Jharni Panchayat under Seemalvada Panchayat Samiti in Dungarpur district made payments of more than 58 lakh rupees without a single work done. And worse, many of those...

Caste proponents say the census must include questions on caste to establish true caste ratios. Opponents say questions on caste are socially divisive. They also raise a behavioural objection: the very announcement of a caste census could encourage people to claim, fraudulently, that they belong to a caste entitled to reservations. This behavioural objection applies as forcefully to surveys for determining poverty. The National Sample Survey Organization conducts periodic surveys on...