Ghee cost just Rs. 7 a kg against Rs. 9 a kg for Dalda.

When large sections of people move out in the non- agricultural season, development of any sort is difficult. As their children go with them, the schools are empty. There are no takers for jobs on local schemes.

Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)

More than a few doctors, having been trained at the expense of the poorest people in the world, settle abroad to address the ailments of affluent Americans. So some of the most deprived, disease- ridden people subsidise the health of the richest.

How do ordinary Indians then afford health care? How do they cope with their situation?

So how does the public health system serve them? How, above all, does it serve the poorest— the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes, those with least access in every sphere?

paani chadaana (infusion of water)

Moneylending creates servility and dependence. The sanctity of repayment, no matter how deceitfully the debt was contrived and how cruel the costs, has been drilled into Indian consciousness since the time of the Manu Smriti.

times, the press has viewed drought and scarcity as events. And the belief that only events make news, not processes, distorts understanding.

the attempt by governments to abdicate their duties towards citizens.

Yet, evading reality helps no one. A society that does not know itself, cannot cope. And development itself has a political core.

Indians have among the lowest per capita consumption of textiles in the world.

It is a duty the Indian press increasingly fails to perform. Whether on Mandal, Ayodhya or the economy, it has been unable to meet that standard.