Carbon Copy A freshly passed amendment to the Forest Conservation Act has created a stir among ecologists, parliamentarians and stakeholders. With several contentious provisions, the amendment reveals an afforestation push where rights and justice take a backseat to commercial interests. This week, amidst a raucous monsoon session, the Indian Parliament saw the passage of several consequential pieces of legislation in quick succession. Among them was the contentious amendment to the Forest Conservation...

India's July consumer price food inflation has risen to 11.51 percent from a year ago, its highest rate in three and a half years. The last time food inflation was above this rate was in December 2019. The price of cereals, pulses, vegetables and spices helped push food inflation into double digits. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July is 7.44 percent, up from 4.87 percent in June.  High food inflation...

The Niti Aayog recently released its National Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023, according to which the poverty headcount ratio declined from 24.85 percent in 2015-16 to 14.96 percent in 2019-21. In absolute numbers this translates to 135 million people exiting multidimensional poverty in this time period. In addition, a few days earlier, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released its own Multidimensional Poverty Index, which in a press note said that,...

The Wire The Niti Aayog’s second edition of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) has projected that about 14.96% of the Indian population is ‘multidimensionally’ poor. In absolute terms, 207.9 million (20.79 crore) Indians are poor and face deprivation in multiple development areas, as per population projections for the year 2021. Though this report also claimed that the multidimensional poverty in India has declined from 24.85% to 14.96% between 2015-16 and 2019-21. The...

The Print More than a third of India’s poor, or 415 million people, were pushed out of multidimensional poverty between 2005 and 2021, shows analysis of the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP’s) updated poverty index data. The data of 110 developing countries, collected over varying time periods, indicates that this fall is likely to be the steepest. According to the UNDP’s updated Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, released Tuesday, about 55 percent of...