In this report, ESCAP explores the future of urbanization in Asia and the Pacific, focusing on the dynamic shifts in the region’s urban landscape. It highlights the region’s demographic transformations, including population ageing, and the persistent challenges of urban poverty and inequality. The analysis covers urban areas of all sizes, …
Demanding effective implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a host of voluntary and mass organisations staged a dharna in front of State Assembly here on Friday. They have called for an overhaul of the existing setup. Although two years have passed since implementation of the Act, the State …
Soon tribals would not have to travel far for treatment. Non-government organisations (NGOs) will do more than just social service. The state government will now entrust them with the job of running hospitals. The plan is to be implemented at as many as 14 locations across the state. Each hospital …
Non-timber forest products (NTFP), whether consumed or marketed, represent a substantial value. NTFP are believed capable of alleviating poverty or at least helping maintain consumption levels while averting impoverishment. Communities find in forests edible and medicinal plants, meat, honey, fodder and fuel.
Eliminating, or even alleviating, global poverty is an enormous task. Poverty can only be truly addressed if certain conditions are met. For a long time there has been an attempt to develop rural poultry. The developmental agencies tried hard to teach the rural farmers how to take care of birds …
This paper by Ministry of rural development highlights the strategic framework to eradicate rural poverty by 2015. Proposes an integrated approach focusing on improved access to natural resources, physical, social and financial infrastructure. This strategy paper examines the features of rural poverty, its magnitude, trends and geographical distribution. It looks …
The amalgamation of regional rural banks has been completed. This paper builds up a case against it. Amalgamation would be a death blow to the credit starved rural poor, most of whom are small and marginal farmers, agricultural and landless labourers, and artisans. The paper calls for an immediate de-amalgamation …
It was unique event. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has always been in focus since the Act was adopted in 2006. For the first time an assembly of 1,245 sarpanches and other elected local government representatives sat for two days on Oct 14 and 15, 2008, to review …
The widely accepted view that emphasises the negative impact of the decline in common property resources on the village poor generally presumes that village common lands would have been used by all villagers inclusive of the poor without serious differences in the right to access them. Mainly based on historical …
In a developing country like India, the development of rural economy through effective and proper management of common property resources (CPRs) such as forests has increasingly become an integral part of sustainable development policy in the past couple of decades. The recognition of community-based forest has led to the devolution …
Neeta Kolhatkar If the SEZ comes up I Raigadh, then the Pedder Road flyover must be built tooLast week was one of the biggest tests of democracy for our state. The Government of Maharashtra woke up a tad late to conduct a referendum on the development of the Special Economic …
This paper seeks to measure deprivation in terms of physical development and calorie-intake of children in two villages of Orissa. While the first aspect focuses on retardation in the physical growth of children as reflected in their weights vis-
India is truly an amazing place: it is both a graveyard of concepts that flourish happily elsewhere, and a breeding ground for those that survive only in our conditions. Terms such as class, status, nation state, and community have already undergone significant modifications in the Indian setting. These changes have …
Sadly, NREGA, the greatest democratic experiment undertaken to reduce rural poverty, has become the stick to beat the Panchayati Raj System - the other greatest experiment of democratic decentralisation.
Cotton, textiles, and apparel are critical agricultural and industrial sectors in India. This study provides descriptions of these sectors and examines the key developments emerging domestically and internationally that affect the challenges and opportunities the sectors face. More than four million farm households produce cotton in India, and about one-quarter …
All these malnutrition deaths occurred in one district in Madhya Pradesh This sounds like yet another tale of malnutrition deaths concocted by activists. At least the district administration of Satna, Madhya Pradesh, thinks so. One year-old Budhlal died in the last week of July. The same week, two-year-old Sheelta, four-year-old …
