-The Indian Express As leading economists urged the Prime Minister not to dilute the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme saying it provides economic security to millions, Union Minister for Rural Development Nitin Gadkari justified the Centre's decision to restrict the focus of the job scheme to the "most backward and needy" districts and reduce the labour-material ratio from 60:40 to 51:49. Denying any move to reduce compensation for lack of...

-Livemint Lack of data makes it hard to draw firm conclusions from the hunger index Child malnutrition is a national shame. The loud debates about this issue have often drowned out the nuances. Millions of Indian children are malnourished because of a combination of factors ranging from poverty to poor sanitation to inadequate use of micronutrients to lack of gender rights. The latest global hunger index released by the International Food Policy...

-The Hindu Business Line Will seek removal of restrictions in ‘peace clause' India has decided to strike a harder bargain on food security at the World Trade Organisation than it did in July. It wants restrictive conditions attached to the use of the peace clause dropped. New Delhi, which had wanted the ‘peace clause' offering protection against retaliatory action for breaching farm subsidy caps extended indefinitely in return for support to the trade...

-The Indian Express While the new government has spoken about taking policy measures to address the needs of India's young population, nearly 10 crore of the elderly - citizens above 60 years of age - are generally neglected in policymaking. The latest Census data report that 15 per cent of the elderly live alone, mainly because of the nuclearisation of the family. As longevity is increasing and women tend to live...

-FirstPost.com Farmer suicides haven't gone up in Maharashtra: Why is Modi tweaking data? Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aggressively attempting to make the high incidence of farmers's suicide in Maharashtra an important election issue. The BJP is probably trying to make inroads in rural Maharashtra where it is not known to be strong traditionally. Modi has quoted government statistics to suggest Maharashtra has had more than 10 farmers committing suicide every day. Needless...