-The New Indian Express JEYPORE (Odisha): Awareness on safe childhood under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)  of the State Government is gaining ground in tribal areas, with mothers rushing to Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres (NRCs) for providing a healthy diet to their children. About 120 children suffering from malnutrition are brought to the NRCs every month, said sources. According to sources, the Health & Family Welfare Department and Child & Woman Welfare Department have...

-IndiaSpend.com Kamla Devi (not her real name), of advanced but uncertain age, lives in Lohari, a remote adivasi village located inside a wildlife sanctuary in Udaipur, Rajasthan. On a summer day in 2016, we approached her as she was chasing after a small herd of goats, to ask questions as part of a study on the relation between ageing, paid work and pensions. Our very first question–whether she was a beneficiary of...

-The Hindu Business Line Aadhaar does more damage than good in welfare programmes It is widely believed that Aadhaar-Based Biometric Authentication (ABBA) is necessary to improve the delivery of welfare programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), Public Distribution System (PDS), social security pensions, and so on. This is a misconception. We have been studying these programmes for a decade, focusing mainly on the source of leakages and...

-The Indian Express There are about 44,000 villages in the state and it is an uphill task for the agency to monitor the ground water table for nearly double the number of wells. Pune: THE MAHARASHTRA government has roped in about 30,000 Jal Surakshaks to monitor the groundwater situation even at micro -levels, including panchayats and blocks. The water care-takers, hired by the Ground Water Survey and Development Agency (GSDA), at...

-The Times of India Going online was supposed to clean up and smoothen functioning of government schemes like the rural job guarantee scheme MGNREGS. But experience from Jharkhand's tribal districts shows that besides the chronic lack of connectivity, a brand new system of corruption has emerged. And, instead of more transparency, villagers with no knowledge of the electronic way of life are running blindly from pillar to post. Too many flip-flops...