Jaipur: Rajasthan has performed fairly well in providing two square meals in both rural and urban areas of the state.

BHUBANESWAR: Countering the allegation of food supplies and consumer welfare minister Pratap Keshari Deb that a recent central government survey on hunger was 'politically motivated', Union statist

Rural families in low income states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal depend far less on ration shops for wheat and rice than the national average.

Indian households purchased much more food items through the public distribution system (PDS) in 2009-10 than they did five years ago, the 66th National Sample Survey has indicated, raising doubts over the effectiveness of the government’s new direct cash transfer system over a large base.

Greater penetration and higher use of the PDS will make it difficult for the government to eventually deliver the Rs 75,000-crore food subsidy to its eligible beneficiaries.

Slum rehabilitation projects, like Rajiv Awas Yojana, should not be shifted to the peripheries with no room for livelihood

Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) is a major flagship programme of the UPA-II government that projects a vision of a slum-free India. It promises to make urban poor families realise their dreams of owning a house with full land title and access to basic amenities. However, its announcement raised diverse expectations. The actors in housing and real estate sector saw it as a programme giving a boost to the land market and creating business opportunity. Banking agencies anticipated huge inflow of subsidies and state support in the name of affordable housing. Urban upper and middle classes hoped that slums that are being perceived as a threat to their safety would disappear either through upgradation or eviction. Unquestioningly, RAY became a darling of everyone, despite conflicting interests.

Whichever way you slice and dice the data, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s statement about causes of malnutrition in the state is wrong.

Mumbai: Fuelled by a construction boom and a rural employment generation push through NREGA, for the first time in about 25 years, the rate of growth of consumption in rural India has outpaced the

Rising inflation and a slowdown in growth had little impact on the rural consumption patterns which outpaced urban spending in the two year period between 2009-10 and 2011-12.

New Delhi Poverty in India has come down to 26 per cent as per the latest data of household expenditure prepared by the NSSO for 2011-12, the Planning Commission said today.

"Many of the academicians...said that poverty in 2011-12 using the Tendulkar line would probably be around 26 per cent or little more than that which is much lower than what it was in 2000, " Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters.