-Scroll.in Administrations are not supposed to cut off rations but health officials seem to think that the threat will work. Experts denounce the measure. “Tikkakaran nahin toh khadyadhan nahin.” No vaccination, no ration. Rajwanti Devi Jaiswal, an Accredited Social Health Activist or ASHA in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district repeated the slogan so often that it sounded like a chant. The district has one of the lowest child immunisation rates in India –...

-Frontline.in The Assembly elections have put under intense scrutiny Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model of development which is touted as worthy of replication throughout the country. Audit reports of the CAG provide ample evidence of it being inefficient, corrupt and not beneficial to the common people. THE standard indicators of development, as is understood in theory and practice, comprise a range of indices, and not necessarily the level of private investment in...

-Scroll.in Minister of Food and Public Distribution Saryu Roy cited a Union Government’s circular to withdraw the chief’s secretary’s order. Jharkhand’s Minister of Food and Public Distribution Saryu Roy on Saturday cancelled an instruction issued by the state’s chief secretary on the linking of the Aadhaar card to ration cards, The Indian Express reported on Sunday. Roy’s order follows the death of a child in Jharkhand’s Simdega district on September 28...

-The Indian Express The order also pointed out that on April 6, the minister had written to his secretary asking for a self-contained report on how the chief secretary could issue such a direction. However, the report was never filed. Ranchi: Four days after questioning the directions given by the Jharkhand chief secretary on mandatorily linking Aadhaar to ration cards by April 5, state PDS Minister Saryu Roy Saturday passed an order...

During the Bengal famine of 1943-44, over 2 million people died due to starvation, diseases and malnutrition, among other things. According to scholars, the apathy of the British government was largely responsible for such a massive tragedy. Despite the enacting of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, the situation of the downtrodden and the poor has not changed much in the country as compared to pre-Independence time. On 28...