-The Hindu On Tuesday, Bhojan Yatra, a campaign demanding a comprehensive food security bill, reached here after travelling through Bihar, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. In a rally, organised from Bistupur to Ram Mandir maidan, Right to Food (RTF) activists demanded that the proposed National Food Security Bill (NFSB) give universal access to food instead of capping it at 67 per cent of the population. They demanded that 8.2 crore metric tonnes of food...

-The Indian Express Surguja: One hundred and seventy-four children dead in 2010, 133 in 2011, 158 this year. In a region marked by gross poverty and hunger in north Chhattisgarh, those are the figures for just the Surguja district hospital, and for just the six months between April-September. Most of the children died of malnutrition and anaemia, most of them within the first month of their life. Surguja collector R Prasanna concedes...

-The United Nations High-level political and private sector officials today met in New York to fight childhood and maternal under-nutrition with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praising the progress made so far, while stressing the importance of continuing to boost efforts on this front. “Every household needs to be able to afford safe, nutritious foods. Markets need to be open and fair. The poorest people need to know they can count on social protection...

-The United Nations The United Nations today launched a programme to empower poor rural women through economic integration and food security initiatives. “Accelerating Progress Toward the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women” is a five-year initiative that will focus on improving food and nutrition security, increasing rural women’s incomes, enhancing leadership and participation in rural institutions, and creating a more responsive policy environment at national and international levels. “When women are empowered and can...

-The Times of India An SMS alert that tells the position of stocks in ration shops. A front-to-back computerization tracking food grain movement from procurement to rations shops. And a swipe card to allow BPL users to access subsidized food grain. A two-stage Rs 4,200 crore recast of India's notoriously leaky public distribution system (PDS) is likely to considered by the Cabinet on Monday along with a Rs 1.25 lakh crore expansion...