-FoodFirst.org NEW YORK CITY-Five innovative grassroots groups from across the globe working for democratic access to land, seeds, water and food have been honored with the 2013 Food Sovereignty Prize, the US Food Sovereignty Alliance announced today. Winners of the fifth annual Food Sovereignty Prize were chosen from among more than 40 inspiring projects creating on-the-ground solutions to hunger and poverty, said the alliance, a network of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental,...

-The Hindu     Bench orders Rs. 10 lakh each for two girls, who were gang-raped in February last at Betma in Indore The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Madhya Pradesh government to pay as compensation Rs.10 lakh each to two girls, who were gang-raped in February last year at Betma in Indore district. A Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and Madan B. Lokur passed the order on an appeal filed by the 84-year-old...

-Tehelka.com The media went on a overdrive and misreported facts. Hundreds of children fell sick in the last two weeks in Haryana, Delhi and Maharashtra after consuming iron and folic acid supplements given to them under under state sponsored programmes to combat anemia. Though the authorities later clarified that mild side-effects like abdominal pain and nausea were expected - there are few takers for this explanation, especially in the backdrop of the...

-The Hindu The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) cannot hold the prospects of the country's hearing impaired ransom to the whims of a single individual head of institution. In a patently regressive move, the premier university has recently decided to shut down the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC) from the current academic year. This, despite the growing emphasis on signing as a language to bridge the...

-The Indian Express Pandharpur: Jaya Waghela, 52, spends more than an hour cleaning herself every morning. But the soap and water cannot wash off the stench of human faeces she cleans everyday with her broom at 600-odd public toilets along the banks of the river Bhima in Pandharpur district of Maharashtra. "The stench is so overbearing that it has killed my appetite," says Waghela, who has stayed away from her kitchen since...