-HuffingtonPost.com A safety net for the poorest and most vulnerable populations. Recently there has been a lot of debate in academic and policy circles about mainstreaming climate concerns in development programs in order to build the resilience of vulnerable communities. One such development initiative is the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), whose main objective is to reduce rural poverty by providing a legal guarantee of 100 days' paid labour...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government's price cap on coronary stents has not deterred the health-care industry from continuing to offer hospitals profit opportunities of tens of thousands of rupees on other kinds of stents, concerned doctors and health-care industry representatives said.     The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the government's price regulator, had on February 15 imposed a cap of about Rs 30,000 on coronary stents. But hospitals can continue to...

-The Indian Express State agriculture minister Gaurishankar Bisen made purported statement in closed-door govt meet Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Agriculture Minister Gaurishankar Bisen has reportedly said in a closed-door government meeting that 90 per cent of the wheat procured for Distribution in his state through the PDS system is diverted illegally. The statement attributed to Bisen, who refused to elaborate on it later, comes at a time when there is talk about...

-PTI The Delhi High Court today made it clear to the Centre that persons entitled under the public Distribution system (PDS) scheme cannot be denied subsidised foodgrains. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra said the “persons entitled under the scheme cannot be denied subsidised foodgrains” and it wanted to ensure that “not only the poor” but all those “eligible” should avail the benefits of the...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for Distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...