An empowered ministers' panel meeting tomorrow is likely to take some decisions to tackle price rise and finalise the draft Food Security Bill, which seeks to give the poor the right to get rice and wheat at Rs 3 per kg. The empowered group of ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is scheduled to review the minimum export price (MEP) for Basmati. In the face of high food inflation, the...

There is little or no doubt that the idea of direct cash transfers to India’s poorest has some heavy hitters behind it now. Besides the now famous second chapter of the Economic Survey and definite hints (and some statements that were more than hints) from Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, several state leaders have spoken up in favour of it. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has more than once said that...

If climate change is indeed the biggest global health threat, public health professionals say that women and children in developing countries will be hit hardest. Research has shown that deep inequalities make them the most vulnerable to scarcity and disease when community sources start to shrink. “Malnutrition poses the biggest threat to children,” paediatrics professor Louis Reynolds said. “If temperature rises by 3 degrees centigrade, deaths from malnutrition will go up by...

Once India sold poverty to foreigners; now it’s being asked to export its top anti-poverty scheme. Five foreign governments have asked the Centre to help them replicate the rural job scheme in their countries, officials have said. South Africa was the first to have shown interest in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), India’s “cushion for poor people’’ in the words of the World Bank. The other four too are African...

‘Improved law and order gave the vital impetus'  ‘State Govt. has ushered in wide-ranging reforms' ‘Development expenditures have increased' One of India's poorest State Bihar has started turning around based on the all-inclusive reforms initiated by the State Government, including improved law and order and higher public expenditures, the World Bank has said. “There are visible signs of a turnaround where the Bihar Government has been implementing wide-ranging reforms. State revenues and development...