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, …
This book seeks to evaluate India's poverty reduction strategy by analysing the pro-poorness of policies and programmes in terms of resources allocation, governance and implementation. Equally importantly, it also tries to assess the pro-poorness of economic growth in terms of the conventional indicators and examines if there has been a …
A health camp conducted in Sama, 60 km north of Bageshwar in Uttaranchal in November, revealed that anaemia, chronic infections, gout, tuberculosis and rheumatoid arthritis are the common ailments there. And, 80 per cent of the 250 people who had come for the check up, suffered from these. Most women, …
The Union government is about to substantially cut down the number of poverty alleviation programmes it runs. Known as the centrally-sponsored schemes (csss), these projects have long been criticised for being out-of-sync with local governments. So, a high powered committee constituted by the Planning Commission has recommended that panchayati raj …
vishwa is a plumber. He likes to go about his job in a no-nonsense manner. Mending pipes, fixing toilets, urinals, drains, hosepipes and sundry other valves and fittings does not quite encourage one to have cerebral pretensions. But Vishwa's stock has gone up amongst his friends of late. The president …
Roughshod riding SEZs will trample on farmers' rights A farmer in Cheete Kalan village in Amritsar, Harjeet Singh Hundal, has big plans. For the past year, he has been using organic manure on his fertile and irrigated agricultural land and he can't stop talking about it. function table() { var …
But the farmers are not the only ones who have been protesting against these special zones. An unlikely but forceful voice has been that of the ministry of finance. Though the commerce and finance ministries had drawn swords over the issue of whether sezs will result in a revenue loss …
The internal structure of sezs and their relations with the world outside are equally controversial. Environment and labour standards followed inside sezs are suspect all around the world. Chinese sezs are particularly notorious for their lax labour and environmental standards. The sez Act has in its own way tried to …
The recent spate of farmer's suicides in Vidharbha have once again thrown the spotlight on faultlines in Indian agriculture. Farmer's suicides are, of course, not the only indicators of agrarian distress. But they do bring into sharp focus how the rural credit system
the Salwa Judum movement, an armed counter-Naxalite campaign in Chhattisgarh comprising of local tribal and non-tribal people backed by the state, is precipitating a deeper crisis in the state instead of solving the problems posed by extreme Left insurgency. Involving civilians directly in the fight against armed insurgents (mostly local …
The National Food for Work Programme (NFFWP), launched in 2004, identified 50 backward districts, where employment guarantee scheme was to get started. The 150 districts were identified by the Planning Commission on the basis of three criteria, Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) population, agricultural productivity per worker, and agricultural wage rate …
Systematic evidence on the patterns of health deprivation among indigenous peoples remains scant in developing countries. The authors investigate the inequalities in mortality and substance use between indigenous and non-indigenous, and within indigenous, groups in India, with an aim to establishing the relative contribution of socioeconomic status in generating health …
function table() { var popurl="image/20060930/43-table.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=575,height=500,scrollbars=yes") } It's been six months since the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (nrega) was launched. And now, the government and civil society organisations are at loggerheads over the "success' of the act. While government claims that nrega has achieved a success rate of over …
Despite the recent emphasis on industrial growth, building up the country's natural resource base remains the most potent counter to rural poverty. In fact, a number of social scientists and activists
Notwithstanding the legislative provisions to safeguard their landed interests, tribals are getting driven to circumstances in which retaining hold over the land under their possession is becoming difficult. The quality of land held by them is so poor that, in its present form, it cannot promise them any reasonable returns. …
death is a seasonal visitor to Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh's largest district and wasteland. It comes just before sowing and after the harvest of groundnut, a cash crop that occupies 91 per cent of land in the district. More than 100 groundnut farmers have committed suicide since the last two years …
when Bhuna Bhil of Pathara village in Dungarpur ran away from the communal carnage in Gujarat, he faced a dilemma: what would he do back in his village? It had already exhausted all his sources of livelihood. Known as the 20th century desert, Dungarpur's 68 per cent population has been …
Poverty in Sarguja district has taken epic proportions. Unlike in the Mahabharat, the descendants of Pandavas and Kauravas have come together to fight a common enemy in Sarguja: poverty. And their fight is as heroic as the Mahabharat. Pandos, the local tribals and descendants of the Pandavas, are fighting for …
Irrigation is a luxury that only a few can afford in Mandla, a water-rich district in Madhya Pradesh. The district receives an annual rainfall of 1,300 mm, which can easily sustain three crops a year. But Mandla residents can barely manage one. The district is surrounded by the mighty Narmada …
