-Frontline Odisha shows the way in the implementation of the ICDS scheme to ensure that children receive nutrition and care in their earliest years, but the Centre’s moves to slash budgetary allocations could wreak havoc on such programmes. At the Tasarda anganwadi centre in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, as the auxiliary nurse and midwife (ANM) pulled out the blood pressure (BP) instrument to check a pregnant woman, the children at the anganwadi began...

-The Indian Express Seeks 50% quota at all levels of legislature A high-level committee, constituted by the government to study the status of women to evolve policy interventions, wants the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) repealed, gay sex decriminalised and at least 50 per cent reservation for women at all levels of legislature, right up to Parliament. The High Level Committee on Status of Women was set up by the UPA government...

-IPS News LUDHIANA: Long-term agricultural growth in India is slowing down. The lands that saw remarkable increases in productivity in the 1970s and 80s, thanks to the technology rolled out as part of the first “Green Revolution”, are not yielding the same results today. India still has the second highest number of undernourished people in the world. To confront this problem, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a Second Green Revolution on Indian...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: For 10 months, the Narendra Modi administration withheld from the public the findings of a study by India's government and Unicef that charts "unprecedented" improvement in child malnutrition over the past decade but shows Gujarat in an unflattering light. Under pressure after The Economist reported the findings a fortnight ago, the government last week released the national-level data from the Rapid Survey on Children. But it is still...

The nation can be proud of running some of the world's largest programmes on social safety nets, says the latest report by World Bank. However, public spending on safety nets is still low in comparison to neighbouring countries Bangladesh and Pakistan. India tops the list of 136 countries for running the world's largest school feeding programme i.e. the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS), and also the biggest public works programme i.e....