Capitalism and Hunger
Jan 20th 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar
After close to 65 years of independent national development, the level of child malnutrition in India remains unacceptably high. The capitalist growth of the worst variety fostered by neoliberalism and the consequent refusal of the government to directly address the problem explains the cause for this ''national shame''.
Much More Needed to Help the Poor
Oct 19th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The Planning Commission's Approach Paper to the Twelfth Plan is not only disappointing, but also disturbing in its attitude towards poverty reduction. Multidimensional approach to poverty, which any sensible government would adopt today, is ignored in the Approach paper and the policy interventions that have been proposed are pathetic.
How Little can a Person Live on Today?
Oct 3rd 2011, Utsa Patnaik
The Planning Commission's laughable estimates of the ''poverty line'' follow from a mistake in method which it made thirty years ago and has clung to ever since. On the basis of the officially accepted nutritional norms, the true poverty lines show that 75 percent of the population is in poverty. With this high level of destitution, the sensible policy is to revert to a universal distribution system with an urban employment guarantee scheme.
Poverty Lines and Poor Minds
Oct 3rd 2011, Himanshu
There is much academic debate on the appropriate estimates of poverty line. Poverty lines are benchmarks for policy makers to measure progress over time. The use of such measures for targeting social assistance is arbitrary. The Planning Commission's use of narrowly defined poverty line estimates restricts access of the poor to basic entitlements such as food and health. What is required is universal provisioning of these entitlements without recourse to any targeting.

India's Role in the New Global Farmland Grab
Aug 23rd 2011. Rick Rowden
This report explores the role of Indian agricultural companies that have been involved in the recent trend in large-scale overseas acquisitions of farmland. In addition to examining the various factors driving the ''outsourcing'' of domestic food production, the report also explores the negative consequences of such a trend. It looks at why critics have called the trend ''land grabbing'' and reviews the impacts on local peoples on the ground, who are often displaced in the process.

Food Prices, Health and Nutrition: Red-flag indicators for the 12th Plan
Aug 17th 2011. Rahul Goswami
The long-term impacts of food inflation on the rural and urban poor are yielding worrying indicators in India's nutrition and health sectors. Analysing new data from the NSSO's 66th Round and recent trends in retail food prices, the author establishes that households in the lower deciles of consumption in both rural and urban areas have been hurt the most by the steep rise in the real retail prices of cereals during 2003 to 2009-10.
Depriving Dalits of their Due
May 4th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The denial of public resources that are mandated under the Special Component Plans for Scheduled Castes amounts to a huge assault on their basic socio-economic rights, as it forces them to continue to live in squalor and degradation.
Health Outcomes across the Major Indian States
Apr 20th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
An examination of the most recent health outcome indicators across the major Indian states throws up some surprising results. In this article, the authors consider the evidence on infant mortality and maternal mortality rates and show how the various states are ranked quite differently as compared to when GDP growth rate is taken as the primary indicator of progress.
The Paradox of Capitalism
Feb 4th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The fact that the bulk of the world's population continues to struggle for subsistence is because of the incubus of an exploitative social order; but this is often obscured by analyses that continue to cling to the illusion that the logic of compound interest will overcome the ''economic problem of mankind''.
The Criminalization of Dissent
Jan 13th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The official position idealising economic growth as a national goal and vilifying any opposition to it as anti-national, is reification. But, equally importantly, it is dangerous, both because it criminalizes ideological dissent and because it implicitly justifies corporate control over the State.
Public Works and Wages in Rural India
Jan 11th 2011, C. P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
Data from the 64th Round of the National Sample Survey, which was specifically concerned with migration and employment conditions, allow for an examination of trends in real wages and the impact of the MNREGS on wages and unemployment. In this article, the authors consider the evidence of these effects on the work conditions of rural casual labour, especially women workers.
(Un)Common Suffering: Distributional impact of recent inflation in India
Jan 6th 2011, Rajarshi Majumder and Subhadip Ghosh
Recent inflation in India is special both because of its peaks and its persistence. It is argued that unlike during 2008-09, recent inflation is due to structural problems. Further, a distributional analysis reveals that its impact is not shared equally. People in the lower income groups have been facing uncommon difficulties, as their purchasing power seems to have been halved over the last four years.
Migrating for Work
Dec 28th 2010, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
The NSSO 64th Round Survey, which was conducted in 2007-08, was concerned specifically with migration. This article examines the broad trends indicated by that survey. It is seen that there are some important changes in the pattern of movement for work, especially with the significant decline in rural male migration rates.
Hunger: The true growth story in India
Dec 21st 2010. Aniruddha Bonnerjee and Gabriele Koehler
Although many of the policies needed for ensuring genuine food security of the people of India are in place, they require more public resources and genuinely inclusive and empowering approach. The specter of hunger in India, the authors contend, will drive some of the more painful policy changes and the associated processes and can help the different policy areas cohere to ensure universal food and nutrition.
Unique Identity, Leakages and Development
Dec 16th 2010, Jayati Ghosh
The latest initiative of the Government of India, the UID project, apparently appears to have many advantages for ordinary citizens, especially the poor. But there is a fundamental mistake in presuming that this will do away with corruption and leakages, because it misses out the fact that it is the power relations that enable and assist the pattern of corruption in India. Also the project can lead to an invasion of basic privacy and undesirable monitoring by the state.
Multidimensional Poverty in India
Aug 30th 2010, Jayati Ghosh
It is increasingly being realised that poverty is much more than a lack of adequate income, and therefore there have been efforts to develop broader concepts of poverty that recognise its multidimensional nature and allow for interventions that address different dimensions of poverty.

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