-The Hindustan Times The current electoral discourse shows an amazing disconnect with the actual reality of the deteriorating livelihood conditions of our people. The other day, the BJP PM aspirant thundered in Bangalore that the BJP seeks to create confidence and not fear among the people. The 2002 Gujarat communal pogrom makes this sound incredulous. There is nothing in the BJP's campaign pitch that offers any solution or a methodology for...

-Down to Earth The most controversial aspect of the food security law is the restructuring of the public distribution system to cover an unprecedented 67 per cent of the population, most of them in the poorer states. LATHA JISHNU, JYOTIKA SOOD and SUCHITRA M explain why there are winners and losers in the new dispensation and how states with better PDS will have to find huge resources to keep their numbers...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Government's failure to run the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme smoothly in the government schools has not stopped it from proposing to extend the programme to cover 25% children of private schools in SC, ST and minority-concentrated districts. Initially, the idea was criticized within the HRD ministry and now both the finance ministry and the Planning Commission have put a spanner in the proposal. Sources in the...

-The Indian Express Why are we reticent about using techno-industrial solutions to reduce malnutrition? The death of several children from consuming a toxic midday meal in Bihar evoked a great sense of outrage. But this outrage will, in all probability, soon die down. Yet, this tragedy, as many reports show, is the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it lies unseen a story of poor service delivery and a lack of commitment. India...

-The Business Standard The tragedy involving the death of children in a Bihar school should reinforce recent efforts to improve the programme, notes Amarjeet Sinha. The sad loss of 23 innocent lives after consuming hot cooked meals in a school in Bihar has rightly shocked and angered people. The highly poisonous pesticide monocrotophos found in children's food and a headmistress overlooking the cook and the children's protests about the oil and not...