The Centre today informed the Supreme Court it has set up a 10-member committee to monitor creation of foodgrain storage capacity and prudently manage stocks but sidestepped the matter of releasing more to the public distribution system (PDS). The committee will be headed by the secretary, food and public distribution. The court has repeatedly asked for more grain for ration shops so that it reaches the poor. The government has been resisting,...

The worries of state procurement and storage agencies may accentuate, as the wheat crop this rabi season is likely to have a higher output this year. The Ministry of Agriculture has projected a crop size of 82 million tonnes as compared to 80.71 million tonnes last year. “Although a bonus of Rs 20 a quintal is a pittance, it will not dissuade farmers from growing wheat, as it is a stable crop...

Nearly 10% of Indians are without jobs, a new study of the country's labour force has found. The study by the federal labour ministry was conducted in some 46,000 households in 28 states all over the country. It also found that over 85% of Indians had no access to social security. Various surveys have pegged India's unemployment rate between 2.8 to more than 10%. Analysts say the actual figure is much higher. They say...

Can we afford to leave MG-NREGA alone? Why is the civil society crying foul? Are the rural activists demanding too much? Is the UPA-II trying to take back what UPA-I gave before the elections? Let us face it, the MG-NREGA is in a big crisis. NAC members like Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze have alleged (See links below) that the present remuneration of rural workers is declining by the day and it...

The latest Human Development Report, or HDR, (2010), marking its 20th anniversary, is both remarkable and useful. Remarkable because it brims with intellectual confidence, born out of a sense of vindication over the “conceptual brilliance and continued relevance” of Mahbub ul-Huq’s original human development paradigm set out in the first sentence of the 1990 report — “People are the real wealth of nations.” The idea of human development, which, through...