Amidst the clamour of India’s colourful 2014 general election, a public debate of great import for India’s future is underway. Leading political candidates debate which development model is best suited for a country of vast economic potential and embedded historical impoverishment.
India has been conspicuously less successful than many other emerging economies in the scale, speed and depth of its reversal of poverty. But many scholars say that whatever one’s measures of poverty, young people on an average have better educational…
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.