Is the Government stepping back from its responsibility under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) by giving technical reasons? Civil society organizations, which struggled to enact the Right to Food legislation, doubt that this may be the case. It has been alleged recently by several civil society activists that the Government is rolling back the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), which is meant for food security of the extremely poor households,...
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In Bollywood, storylines remain backward on caste -Rukmini S & Udhav Naig
-The Hindu But Tamil films are refreshingly different. Just six of the lead characters in the nearly 300 Bollywood movies released over the last two years belonged to a backward caste, an analysis of data by The Hindu shows. In contrast, a substantial number of popular Tamil movies of 2013 and 2014 had backward caste lead characters. For an insight into the depiction of caste in Bollywood, The Hindu analysed all Hindi movies released...
More »NGOs’ foreign funds and a trust deficit -Trilochan Sastry
-The Hindu There is no organised conspiracy against NGOs. It is in the nature of power to exercise greater control, and exempt itself from accountability. The recent changes in the rules governing foreign funding of NGOs under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) have been widely discussed. The last word on it will perhaps never be written. The UPA government initiated this and we see some concrete changes now. Sifting through the...
More »Dignified alternative -Harsh Mander
-The Hindu Far from being ‘useless’, the MNREGA helps the impoverished and resilient poor earn a decent living. Famously on the floor of Parliament, Prime Minister Modi dismissed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) as a ‘living monument’ of the previous governments’ failures, condemning millions of impoverished people to survive by ‘digging ditches’. This spring near Bhim in Rajasthan, I had the rare experience of labouring on an MGNREGA site....
More »More tears for Maggi than for cuts in govt’s health spends -Indranil Mukhopadhyay
-The Hindu Business Line India’s expenditure on health is just a little over 1% of its income Health care in India seems to be entangled in a vicious cycle of low public investment and poor health outcomes. Our health achievements are dubious - home to a fifth of the world’s children who die before their fifth birthday and the highest number of mothers who die while giving birth. Poorer neighbours like Bangladesh...
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