-The Indian Express A few years ago I met a woman, let's call her Chandibai, in a village outside Udaipur. A former panchayat member, she was now a leader in her village - a person to whom others (particularly other women) turned for help. She wore her mobile on a cord around her neck and had the panchayat president, the village development officer and even the district collector's office on speed...

-The Hindu The failure of successive governments in India, especially those in States that have the highest mortality rates among children younger than five years, to address the critical issue of training health-care providers in rural areas to correctly diagnose and treat children suffering from diarrhoea and pneumonia, has had tragic consequences. These ailments account for the maximum number of under-5 mortality incidence in the country. That the poor management...

-Frontline A critique of the report of the high-level committee on restructuring the FCI and reviewing its role by TK Rajalakshmi SOON after assuming power at the Centre, Narendra Modi's National Democratic Alliance government set up a high-level committee on re-structuring the Food Corporation of India that was mandated to make the food management system more efficient. It was headed by Shanta Kumar, former Union Minister for Rural Development and former Chief...

-The Telegraph Prithla (Haryana): The noise from the factories and traffic cannot drown out the slogan resonating along the Delhi-Mathura highway, demanding a right to land for all and the scrapping of the land acquisition ordinance. "Sabki bhuk mitana hai to bhumi grahan ardhyadesh radh karo, bhumi samasya hal karo (To remove hunger, dump the ordinance and solve the problem of the landless)," goes the chant. Some 5,000 landless people and marginal farmers...

-IPS News NEW DELHI: Despite being one of the world's fastest expanding economies, projected to clock seven-percent GDP growth in 2017, India - a nation of 1.2 billion - is trailing behind on many vital social development indices while also hosting one-fourth of the world's poor. While the United Nations prepares to wrap up a decade-and-a-half of poverty alleviation efforts, framed through the lens of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by the...