-CNN-IBN Cuttack (Odisha): In Odisha, there are 73,000 schools where mid-day meals are provided to students everyday. The government spends around Rs 800 crore per year on these mid-day meals. Per student per meal, the amount spent is a little over Rs 4. But what is more important to know, is under what conditions, and how safely, is this food prepared. "There is no kitchen as such, the food is prepared in...

-NDTV The Chhattisgarh government is guilty, at the least, of culpable homicide for the deaths of over a dozen women in government-run sterilisation camps in the last few days. But the government and in particular the Health Minister think they can escape from their own responsibility by arresting the doctor who did the operations and setting up a judicial enquiry. Really? You need a judicial enquiry to tell you that the targets you...

-IANS Bhubaneswar: The government Wednesday decided to register construction workers from Odisha employed outside the state and provide them with all the benefits available to construction workers within the state. This was decided at a meeting chaired by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here, said official sources. The meeting decided to extend housing loans subject to a maximum of Rs.one lakh at an interest rate of two percent to the construction workers. The...

-The Hindu Every effort needs to be made to reform MGNREGA, as it has been both a major success and a huge failure. The best way for this is to study carefully the conditions that made it a success and also to undertake a diagnostics of its failures An impression has gained ground in recent weeks that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre is inimical to the Mahatma Gandhi...

-The Indian Express Recent announcements on possible changes to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and restrictions on its coverage are baffling and worrisome. The passing of the MGNREGA and the Right to Information Act heralded a new vision of citizenship and state responsibility. The former created a safety net for the rural poor. The latter gave taxpayers and voters an opportunity to bridge the gap between state...