-The Hindu   ‘The mechanism for compensating the affected people is not clearly defined and has many limitations' Industry chambers led by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and FICCI on Friday sought a review of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2011 approved by the Union Cabinet stating that the industry was concerned on royalty, profit sharing and the methodology of providing assistance to project-affected persons. In a statement here, Rana Som,...

Planning Commission’s affidavit to the Supreme Court states that adjusting for inflation, the poverty line for an urban person is Rs 32.5 per day per person and for a rural person it is Rs 29.3 per day per person. This has raised an outcry in media and the urban middle class, who consider them outrageously low. Based on these poverty lines, Planning Commission estimates that there are 40.74 crore persons...

-The Economic Times   India's new mining Bill has provisions which seek, rightly, to shovel money from mining companies to rural people affected by mining, but the devil could lie in the detail. The proposal has three defects. One, it seeks differential treatment for coal and other minerals - coal miners would share 26% of their profits, while miners of other minerals would give additional royalty payments. Pray, why? Two, it exempts...

There are two ways to identify the poor: in terms of how much they lack, and in terms of what you can do for them. To begin with, India's poverty line was set at the total (food and non-food) expenditure observed for the person who was just about consuming a nutritionally adequate number of calories. In subsequent years, rural and urban poverty lines were adjusted to take inflation on board, without adjusting...

-The Hindustan Times   Do these people look well-off to you? The planning commission puts them above poverty line. Basant Kumar, 51  Shopkeeper  Kusumpur Pahari slum,  Vasant Vihar, Delhi Daily expense: Rs 53   Basant Kumar runs a little shop in a slum in Vasant Vihar, home to over two lakh migrant families. He feeds and clothes his wife and three children on his meagre earnings of Rs5,000 a month. He also works odd-jobs, in construction or with...