-Rediff.com   India, home to a quarter of the world's hungry people with nearly 40 per cent of the population malnourished, is facing an unprecedented food crisis, international charity organisation Oxfam said on Wednesday. "Despite the doubling of the size of its economy since 1990, the number of hungry people in India has increased by 65 million because economic development excluded the rural poor and social protection schemes failed to reach them," Oxfam...

Tribal people constitute close to 50 per cent of the population that has been displaced because of "developmental" activities. “IF you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country,” Jawaharlal Nehru has been quoted as telling the village residents to be displaced by the Hirakud dam in 1948. And so it has been for the past 64 years. People, mostly impoverished tribes, have been suffering because...

-The Business Standard   Land acquisition for non-agricultural purposes is one of the oldest policy challenges that modern governments have faced. It is, therefore, not surprising that it has become a major political issue in India as urbanisation spreads, new industries grow and major infrastructure development takes place. To imagine that complex political challenges faced in widely varying agrarian, social and economic contexts can be suitably addressed by one common national...

-DNA   In an attempt to curb high infant and maternal mortality rate in India, the government has decided to launch scheme from June 1 to provide free healthcare to mothers and children. The Central government has asked the states to ensure free and cashless services to all pregnant women in government hospitals as well as to sick neonates. This includes free drugs, free consumables and diagnostics, free diet during stay and free...

-The Hindustan Times   Separate CBI teams from New Delhi arrived in Orissa on Tuesday and began probing into the alleged large-scale corruption in implementation of the rural job scheme under MGNREGA, official sources said on Tuesday. The officials of the premier investigating agency have already reached the districts of Rayagada, Kalahandi and Koraput, an official said adding they have met district level officials before verifying documents relating to MGNREGA. "The state government has...