-Hindustan Times A dominant feature of the first year of Narendra Modi's leadership is the quiet dismantling of India's imperfectly realised framework of welfare and rights, covertly, by stealth.   A declared pro-corporate agenda, such as the land acquisition ordinance, proved politically messy and costly. Therefore, the government resorted instead for an enfeebling of the welfare architecture of the country through a combination of fiscal withdrawals, ignoring even legally mandated obligations.   But this attracted...

-Outlook Bhubaneswar: A day after laying foundation for a new medical college in tribal dominated Mayurbhanj district, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today said a special scheme will be launched to reduce MMR and IMR in Odisha. "A special initiative for reduction of IMR and MMR in difficult areas of the state will be rolled out with budget of Rs 50 crore annually," Patnaik told reporters after chairing the annual meeting of the...

-The Times of India Blog India’s Right to Information (RTI) Act has caught the imagination of people in this country, while being appreciated across the world. A great change has come in India this decade in the power equation between the sovereign citizens of the country and those in power. This change is just beginning and if we can sustain and strengthen it, our defective elective democracy could metamorphose, within the...

-The Hindu The tragic Nepal quake is an opportunity to learn and understand the threats of great temblors. The Nepal earthquake of April 25 is the largest in the Himalayan region since the 1934 quake which measured 8.2 on the Richter scale and destroyed not only parts of central Nepal but also the plains of northern Bihar in India. Mahatma Gandhi, shaken by the Bihar tragedy, wrote in the Harijan that the...

Due to the annual decline in under-5 mortality rate by almost 7% during 2008-13, the Government is hopeful of India attaining the target 5 of Millennium Development Goal-4 i.e. reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the U5MR. This has been revealed in a press release on checking child mortality rate by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, dated 28 April, 2015.   However, experts think that this will be...