The troubling figures of poverty in India
How much money does a poor person need to survive with elementary human dignity? And have these numbers rapidly come down in the recent years that coincide with high economic growth?
How much money does a poor person need to survive with elementary human dignity? And have these numbers rapidly come down in the recent years that coincide with high economic growth?
Even with many shortcomings the mid-day meal scheme is still the best implemented of all social programmes, comparing favourably to the public distribution system, the Integrated Child Development Services scheme and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
The debates around the national food security Bill—which will create legal duties for the state to provide food to citizens—have become overheated and often deeply polarized.
Among free India’s gravest failures—along with its inability to end hunger, pervasive poverty and discrimination—is the continued targeting of people with violence and arson only because of their faith or caste.
This relates to the National Interest article,‘ The bleeding heartless’, by Shekhar Gupta (IE, June 1). In the article, it is mentioned that Padma, the wife of leading Maoist Ramakrishna, managed an orphanage run by the NGO Aman Vedika, with which I am associated. The facts of the matter are as follows.
If government officials and political leaders wish to act, the law — as it stands — is more than adequate to empower police and officials to prevent and control communal violence. No riot can continue for more than a few hours without the active will of the political leadership of governments that violence should…