The Planning Commission, headed by the prime minister, has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court quantifying the daily poverty line for an adult as Rs 26 in rural, and Rs 32 in urban India. At today’s relentlessly increasing prices, Rs 26 will not get a Manual Worker even one nutritious meal a day — leave alone the 2,400 calories he is required to eat to enable him to work,...
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Targeting Dalits by S Dorairaj
The police action against Dalits in Paramakudi leaves indelible scars on the psyche of the oppressed people all over Tamil Nadu. The Tamil Nadu Police, in its modern avatar, reflects a glorious tradition of over a century and a half. It was the only force to embark on State-sponsored modernisation in the early 1990s which was pioneered by me during my first tenure as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996....
More »Dividing the poor by TK Rajalakshmi
The flawed Bill on food security has not received the kind of publicity that the Lokpal Bill has, but that does not diminish its significance. “THIS government has divided everything and everyone. There are different cards for different sections of the poor. If my employer, taking pity on me, gives me an old television, I am not entitled to a yellow card [Below Poverty Line card]. My son who is...
More »Reported corruption in MGNREGA just tip of iceberg: Parliamentary panel
-PTI A Parliamentary standing committee has found discrepancies in MGNREGA wage distribution system and feels that reported number of corruption cases related to it is a just tip of the iceberg. “The number of corruption cases as reported is just a tip of the iceberg and the real situation in this regard may be more serious,” the committee said in its report on wage disbursement to labourers under MGNREGA by Post Offices...
More »Arundhati Roy’s anti-Anna tirade: High on anger, short on rigour by Shalini Singh
While the rest of the world is saluting the birth of a miracle - the manifestation of the best of the human spirit in a peaceful movement that is uniting millions of people across religions, geographies and social and economic groups - Arundhati Roy has seized the opportunity to be intellectually irreverent. Sadly, her vituperative dismissal of this powerful human revolution in her piece, ‘I would rather not be Anna' published...
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