-The Indian Express In zones of prosperity, agriculture faces crisis, jobs are few, social aspirations don’t match economic realities After Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, farmers from Rajasthan came out on the streets demanding loan waiver and implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report. Protesting against government policies and demanding their share in the country’s development, which they argue have been denied to them, the farmers have shown unity across caste and class lines....

-The New Indian Express NEW DELHI: The Centre has decided to invest an additional Rs 12,000 crore in next three years for the nutrition of pregnant and lactating women and children in the age group of 0-6 years as the cabinet Wednesday approved an increase of cost norms for supplementary nutrition provided in anganwadis and for adolescent girls. As per the new norms, for children below 6 years, the money has been...

-Hindustan Times Women don’t have enough power within households to insist that the Cash provided be used for nutritional needs. The THR system is a way to ensure that they at least get some essential nutrition. The decision to do away with take-home rations (THR) in aanganwadis for infants under three and pregnant and lactating mothers, and to replace the scheme with Cash transfers is not a good idea. The initial impetus...

-The Indian Express Cash transfers instead of food has been widely debated with several criticising it for not being an actual substitute for take-home rations, which is a mix of cereals, fats, sugar and pulses, with added micronutrients. In a major policy shift, the Ministry of Woman and Child Development (WCD) has prepared a proposal to substitute take-home rations, given in aanganwadis for infants under three and pregnant and lactating mothers,...

-Scroll.in Inability of local officials and infrastructure to cope with the complex technologies driving the scheme could be leaving lakhs of workers unpaid. This year’s Economic Survey lists several “improvements” in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act brought about since 2014-’15. Mostly, these “improvements” are technological initiatives – greater convergence with other programmes, “geo-tagging” of MNREGA assets. They have not made a difference on two of the stated purposes – timely...