-The Indian Express For Bedoni, whose family lost members to hunger in 2004, the supply of affordable rice to Amlasole village in Belpahari on the Jharkhand border means a less frantic struggle for food. Amlasole (West Bengal): The first thing Bedoni Sabar mentioned when asked what the government has done for her was, “Oi, du takaye chaal (You know, that rice at Rs 2).” The 38-year-old mother of five sat plaiting...

-The Hindu Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Secretary Basudeb Banerjee held video conferences with District Magistrates on Tuesday to iron out the glitches in the government’s distribution of digital ration cards. The meeting took place at the State Secretariat. The development comes after a number of issues cropped up regarding the implementation of the government’s related initiative including delay in the issuing of digital ration cards and confusion among beneficiaries about the...

-The Hindu Now is a good time to debate the criteria which enables the government to keep secrets instead of making everything public. On January 23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered on his promise and released 100 files on Subhas Chandra Bose in the presence of the freedom fighter’s family, which has persisted with its demand for declassifying all documents that could shed light on his mysterious disappearance and probable death in...

  A French journalist once wrote: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps the same can be said about nutritional status of children in West Bengal at present in comparison to the past. At the time when Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, was entertaining private capital in Singur and Nandigram, the rate of undernutrition was quite high in his state. A little less than...

-The Hindu Business Line Electoral Trusts bring some transparency to India Inc’s donations to parties, but more needs to be done New Delhi: India Inc makes big donations to political parties, but very little is made public on the amount or to whom it is given. Electoral Trusts revealing such data were expected to bring in more transparency. A change in income-tax rules in January 2013 paved the way for the setting up...