Since the poverty estimates released by the Planning Commission determine the eligibility of benefits such as BPL allocation of foodgrain to the states, he said, "a firm choice of reference period is necessary." Different reference periods (30-day recall period and 365-day recall period) used in the early surveys, he added, had prompted the Planning Commission to come out two with sets of poverty figures.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday hit back at his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, saying poverty cannot be eradicated by "driving tanks on farmlands" and once again needled India by calling Hizbul commander Burhan Wani the "valiant son of Kashmir".
The most important lesson is that you have to build your political proposition, and sell it yourself. You can't leave it to the courts, media, NGOs and civil society and expect them to play the role of the Opposition. That's precisely what Mr Modi's challengers have been doing and we know the results, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Modi said he is seeking a third term not to enjoy power but to work for the nation. "If I had thought of my home, it would not have been possible to build homes for crores of people," he said.
The global financial crisis has hit the realisation of Millennium Development Goals hard with loss of employment and food inflation slowing down the progress and an additional 64 million people expected to be thrown into extreme poverty by 2010-end relative to a no-crisis scenario.
There are other ways in which markets are capable of serving the poor better than large-scale and often unaffordable anti-poverty interventions.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
There are a number of problems that plague the implementation of MGNREGA, including corruption, administrative paralysis and other hardy perennials. Massive amounts of funds on this scheme remained unspent in 2010-11 and 2011-12.
Impressive advances in the world's most populous countries, India and China, have been at the forefront of the reduction in global poverty, a World Bank panel has said.
India has contributed to a large reduction in global poverty, according to the UN annual report on the Millennium Development Goals, which also pointed out that despite progress, the most vulnerable sections of society were being left out.
'I have made a new rule: When I'm having my morning tea, a guy keeps the harmonium on my bed.' 'So while I'm writing what my plan for the day is, that harmonium is in front of me and I do riyaz of 40-50 minutes.'
The urban population of the Asia-Pacific region has been growing at the fastest rate in the world over the past 15 years, according to the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific" released yesterday by the UN Economic and Social Commission. "This growth is having a knock-on effect," said Pietro Gennari, chief of ESCAP's Statistics Division. "We're seeing more and more people living in slums and also a negative effect on people's ability to access clean water.
Even as India strives to climb the development mountain, the fact is that the mountaintop is already crowded. If it got there in 2047, India would be very much a late-comer, observes T N Ninan.
According to a 2011 impact assessment study of the programme by Banerjee and Duflo, along with economists Raghabendra Chattopadhyay and Jeremy Shapiro, Bandhan's THP results in a 15 per cent increase in household consumption and had a positive impact on wealth and welfare, such as assets and emotional well being.
Globalisation and capitalisation cannot be avoided but they should be planned and executed in such a way that natural habitat of these tribal people is not devastated.
Though Beijing asserts the Dalai Lama's successor needs its approval, observers say it remains concerned as the present Panchen Lama, the number two spiritual leader who was appointed by it after unseating the boy nominated by the Dalai Lama, has not gained much traction in Tibet.
Unlike any other region in the world, because of 'persistent and deep inequalities' in South Asia, children in the region are trapped in an unrelenting cycle of discrimination at several levels, Unicef regional director for South Asia Daniel Toole said.
Poverty in rural areas declined at a faster pace than in urban cities between 2004-05 and 2009-10, according to the Planning Commission estimates released on Monday.
Several leaders of the TMC slammed the rural development minister for his comments on the chief minister attending the Kolkata International Film Festival.
In rural areas, the poverty ratio was estimated at 28.3 per cent whereas in urban areas it was 25.7 per cent, stated V Narayanswamy, Union Minister of State for Planning and Parliamentary Affairs in Rajya Sabha on Thursday, in response to a question by independent member Parimal Nathwani.
'The opposition parties didn't want voting as it would have exposed the cracks in their alliance. They ran away from the House'
Cricketers, shaped by diverse journeys from unexpected corners of the country, serve as a testament to the power of unwavering belief.
'When I looked closely at people and stories from that region, I realised that the landscape contributes a lot to how people behave.'
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has officially confirmed that 2023 is the hottest year on record by a huge margin, smashing global temperature records.
"On a larger scale we've got to think about how we can integrate this technology into a massive effort to scale up access to financial services," the bank said.
Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy on Friday said rupee appreciation was a macro-economic issue and called upon corporates to become more efficient, productive and reduce costs.
Notorious for drugs and crime and afflicted by large-scale poverty, the Khayelitsha township in Cape Town is better known for being one of the biggest slums on the planet. But World Cup-winning coach Gary Kirsten is attempting to change the image for good through cricket.
"This 'trishul' is like Lord Shiva's third eye which will reduce to ashes those who work against the common man," he added.
The manner in which the government and the political opposition in Delhi have been guilt-tripped into this debate on the poverty line is a reflection of a broader phenomenon that has taken root within the minds of the thinking class at large, says Shashi Shekhar.
For the country's poorest districts, the only hope of escaping grinding poverty is to increase farm productivity in a big way -- in most of these districts, around 85 per cent of those employed work in the agricultural sector.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday pitched for communal harmony and brotherhood in the country, saying Hindus and Muslims should work together to fight the common enemy of poverty and ignore "irresponsible" statements made by politicians, even if he himself makes any.
India can eliminate poverty in the next 15-20 years and prepare itself to become an economic superpower, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Friday
In his second term as prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh would like to concentrate on how to enable the country to get rid of poverty. Dr Singh said, "I have always viewed that our role as a government is to enable our country to get rid of chronic poverty, ignorance and disease, which still afflict millions and millions of our people." While praising his government's achievements in the last five years in this respect, he said, "We have made some important gains."
The World Bank's latest review of its purchasing power parity (PPP) baseline will reignite the poverty debate.
The Lok Sabha contest in Thiruvananthapuram is shaping up to be a significant battle involving key candidates like Shashi Tharoor, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Panniyan Ravindran. This three-cornered fight highlights the political dynamics in Kerala's capital city, with each candidate bringing their own vision and promises for the region's development, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
Chaudhary Charan Singh, who on Friday was conferred with India's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna, is popularly known as a champion of farmers.
Over 23 million people were brought above the poverty line in China last year as about 100 million people from rural areas moved to cities for work.
'The sense of Constitutional propriety and political morality seems to be vanishing fast.' 'There are many things in today's politics of governance which Manmohan Singh would have never dreamt of saying or doing.'
Whether it was the MGNREGS or the NFSA or the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for cash transfer, the Modi government has built on the basic architecture created by the Singh government. Policy makers in the Modi government, instead of discarding them as products of the previous political regime, worked on them, expanded their scope and reach, and used new tools to improve their performance, explains A K Bhattacharya.
'They know that if they do not tie up with the Congress, then the minorities will move to the Congress.'
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