-The Indian Express PDS has improved in the state, but it’s still not up to the mark. Recent media reports suggest that the public distribution system (PDS) in West Bengal is now “doing enormously well” — as one headline put it. Some also claim that this has contributed to the victory of the Trinamool Congress in the latest assembly elections. Since we were involved in the survey cited in these reports, we...

-PTI Supreme Court today directed the Centre to do away with sterilisation camps within three years and strengthen the primary healthcare centre system, saying "it is time that women and men are treated with respect and dignity and not as mere statistics in the sterilisation programme". The verdict was delivered when the court was dealing with a PIL which had brought to light the mismanagement of sterilisation camps which had led to the...

-PTI N Chandrababu Naidu said access to electricity was a key socio-economic development indicator, but this was an area where there was still a significant gap in India. Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh has become the second state in the country after Gujarat to achieve 100 per cent electrification of households, a latest report has said. JM Financials published the report based on a national-level survey on electrification in various states. Discussing this through a tele-conference with top officials...

-The Indian Express An enduring solution to India’s water woes lies in buffer stocking during monsoon months and release during lean seasons. Till June end this year, the government was worried about how to cope with back-to-back drought. But by the second half of August, the scene changed dramatically and several states were in the spate of floods. In Bihar, more than five million people have been affected and 6,50,000 displaced from...

-TheWire.in Given the negative impact biometric point of sales machines have had in Jharkhand and Rajasthan, the group urged Bihar to continue its own PDS reforms. A group of economists and social scientists have urged Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to not buckle under pressure from the Centre to use Aadhaar-based point of sales (PoS) machines for the distribution of rations under the public distribution system (PDS). These machines have been found...