The official line is simple. Since we cannot afford to feed all the hungry, there must only be as many hungry as we can afford to feed. There was irony in the timing of the petrol price decontrol order. The decision, which also covered major hikes in diesel and kerosene prices, and affects hundreds of millions of people, came even as Manmohan Singh advised world leaders in Toronto on the need...

The world’s largest study exploring the link between wealth and happiness has revealed a deficit of trust and social-psychological well-being in India that scientists believe could exacerbate the psychological effects of poverty. India ranks low — 85th among 89 countries — on social-psychological strengths assessed through questions such as whether people feel respected or whether they have close family or friends they can turn to for help. Yet India has relatively...

A crop-killing fungus is spreading out of Africa towards the world’s great wheat-growing areas IT IS sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. Wheat rust has spread silently and speedily by 5,000 miles in...

Even Bihar has outdone UP. Seven out of ten children in Uttar Pradesh lack protection against life threatening diseases like BCG, DPT and others. Of the ten high focus states in the country, Uttar Pradesh ranks lowest as far as routine immunisation (RI) coverage is concerned. Worse is that while other states in the category have picked up well in the last one decade, UP still lags behind. The fact...

Chanchala Devi always wanted a house. Not a mud-and-stick hut, like her current home in this desolate village in the mineral-rich, corruption-corroded state of Jharkhand, but a proper brick-and-mortar house. When she heard that a government program for the poor would give her about $700 to build that house, she applied immediately. As an impoverished day labourer from a downtrodden caste, she was an ideal candidate for the grant. Yet she...