-The Wall Street Journal These days, Indian policymakers are debating how to create a vast new food entitlement program. There is talk of poor households struggling to cope with high food prices and malnourishment among their children. What you don’t hear much about, however, is the most tragic and outrageous consequence of India’s failure to feed its people adequately: starvation deaths. India is a nation that prides itself on having been self-sufficient in...

The Samajwadi Party government is gearing up to include 17 OBC sub-castes into the scheduled castes.  A high-level committee headed by Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Jawed Usmani has sought details from the department of social welfare before issuing a notification in this regard. The circular from the UP chief secretary on March 28, too, speaks of the government's priorities, including the inclusion of 17 OBC sub-castes within the SC category.  If the...

-The Hindustan Times Civil society pressure may have forced the government to keep proposed changes in the Right To Information (RTI) Act in abeyance but the information officers are quietly implementing them.  The government has proposed restrictions on RTI applications that only one issue can be raised in one application and it should not be more than 250 words. But, it had to withdraw amendments following objection by RTI proponents such as...

-The Times of India The building of school infrastructure as per norms set by the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, is moving at a rather slow pace in the neighbouring Satara district. This, despite the substantial financial allocations made through the central government's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) programme. An independent assessment of 146 schools across Satara district, carried out by the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research (CPR), has...

-The Economic Times   The much-awaited Food Security Bill, which is being vetted by Parliamentary Standing Committee, may see some changes before being cleared. "The committee may go for universalising the distribution of grains to cover wider range of population," ministry sources said. According to the original bill, the government is planning to make foodgrain available at low prices only to 'certain' targeted sections, that is, the below-poverty line population dividing the...