-Financial Chronicle From the inner recesses of Chattisgarh to the upper crevices of Sikkim, a look at how MGNREGA initiatives are changing lives The large blackboard outside the police station reads like a rate list. There are different monetary awards for Naxalites' surrender with different weaponry, the highest, Rs 4.5 lakh, for surrender with a light machine gun, Rs 3 lakh with an AK 47, and only Rs 30,000 with a 12...

-The Hindustan Times A United Nations report on Wednesday asked the government to increase focus on rights-based programmes - like the job guarantee and food security schemes - to eradicate poverty while praising PM Narendra Modi's financial inclusion scheme, the Jan Dhan Yojana. The UN report on India and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes at a time when the central government has cut the budget for social sector schemes and initiated...

-The Hindu Actual revenue from RTI services continues to be pegged low, year after year Hyderabad: Estimates of revenue generated through RTI (Right to Information) queries and actual revenue generated by the State government, has revealed great disparity over the years. Each RTI applicant is required to pay a sum for information demanded. Going by data from the last few years, revenue estimated by the GAD (General Administration Department) of united Andhra Pradesh...

-Outlook A parsing of the recent expert report on food security reveals that most of its solutions do not meet the greater public good. The BJP's election manifesto had stated "that ‘universal food security' is integral to national security. BJP will take steps to ensure that the benefits of the scheme reach the common man and that the right to food does not remain an act on paper or a political...

-The Hindu The Shanta Kumar Committee's recommendations to unbundle the Food Corporation of India are in tune with U.S.-led demands raised in the World Trade Organization The Shanta Kumar Committee report, released last week, on a range of issues relating to procurement, storage and distribution of food grains is not only deeply flawed in its reading of the situation on food security, but also short on facts. It was prepared under the...