The Planning Commission’s updated poverty estimates for the year 2011-12 based on the National Sample Survey’s 68th round survey on monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) throws new light on poverty reduction in India. The timing and comparative presentation of estimates turned out to be an occasion to unsettle the debate on poverty and its dynamics in India once again. Several… Read more →
The UPA government has recently declared that anyone earning over Rs 27 in rural India and Rs 33 in urban India is to be considered as living above the poverty line. The Congress party leaders have taken a step further and commented that one could easily get a meal for Rs 5, Rs 12 etc. Newsclick discusses these figures and… Read more →
CONSIDER THE two best-known facts about India’s food economy. On the one hand, 42 percent of our little children are malnourished. On the other, our godowns are bursting with foodgrain. Can we join the dots by drawing a straight line from the warehouse to the homes of the hungry? That’s only the most obvious of our food system’s glaring contradictions. subsidies… Read more →
The Four Left parties, the CPI, CPI(M), Forward Bloc and RSP have launched a national campaign on the issues relating to food security. The Food Security Bill presently before the Parliamentary Standing Committee is a Bill which if accepted in its present form will legalise the injustice of excluding a vast section of our people from the right to food… Read more →
Peasants, agricultural workers and common people from Rajasthan, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh participated in thousands on the fourth day of the Left parties dharna on 2nd August. Leaders of the four Left parties criticised the government for its biased policies that are favouring the rich. The central leadership of the four Left parties exposed the true character of the UPA… Read more →
Thousands of people from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh participated on the third day of the Left parties dharna on 1st August. The leaders of the Left parties congratulated the people who had come to participate in the dharna travelling hundreds of kilometres and braving many odds. They highlighted the fact that the thousands sitting in dharna in Delhi… Read more →
The second day of the Left parties dharna on 31st July demanding immediate legislation on food security again witnessed the participation of thousands of people from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Haryana. The people expressed their anger against the government and their strong resolve and determination by sitting in dharna, braving the incessant rain throughout the day. The Central leaders of… Read more →