-Business Today "I want it back," says Sharada Begum. The 67-year-old woman is a member of one of the 100 households of Raghubir Nagar, a resettlement colony in west Delhi, chosen to participate in a pilot scheme that aimed to turn the public distribution system (PDS) on its head. Through all of 2011, these households had Rs 1,000 transferred every month to a woman member's bank account in lieu of rice, wheat,...

-The Business Standard Financial inclusion in Madhya Pradesh helps the Centre's cash transfer projects It may not take a century for villages in India to get banks, and villagers to own accounts. Madhya Pradesh is paving the way for financial inclusion. The state is suddenly full of excitement about what it considers is a feat. Its rural development department has hired publicity agents to spread the word that every villager in the...

-The Economic Times It is a wake up call for the government and its efforts to improve the quality of schooling through the Right to Education. The number of children enrolled in government primary schools has dropped by 21 lakh between 2009-10 and 2010-11 while there has been an increase of 11 lakh in enrolment in private schools. The biggest decline in government primary school enrollment was in Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand,...

-The Telegraph Hazaribagh: At Sunderlal Jain Ucch Vidyalaya, a few among a group of 150 students are inevitable latecomers. Their plight has nothing to do with a dare to challenge authority, for, left without another choice, they have to get on a boat and cross a river to attend class. For the children in the villages of Larahi, Toiya, Gorkhwa and Bhattbigha, roughly 65km from the district headquarters, the Jain Ucch Vidyalaya...

-DNA Mumbai has more undernourished children under the age of five than the whole of urban Maharashtra. Experts say malnutrition is prevalent amongthe slum dwellers, migrant labours and the city’s minority communities. A recent report on malnutrition, titled ‘India’s nutrition crisis: A challenge of putting nutrition back in our food’ by Narotam Sekhasaria Foundation, an NGO, reveals that more than half of the country’s upcoming generation— children under four years of age...