-The Times of India The government is moving rapidly to enable cash transfers through the Aadhar platform with 51 districts to be covered by January 1, 2013, and half the country four months later — a bid to rollout an initiative aimed at streamlining subsidies while also earning votes. The plan is to put money directly into bank accounts of beneficiaries of government schemes like scholarships, cheap food under the Public Distribution...

42 families from Birpur village of Satna district in northern Madhya Pradesh are on a protest since the beginning of the month, to draw attention to the siphoning of their PDS foodgrain. Additionally, through an online petition put by a local activist group, the families are demanding that K.K. Khare, Satna’s District Collector use his powers to crack down on the months-long corruption and resume their supply of ration entitlements....

-The Hindustan Times Melghat is an incredibly beautiful place — especially, if you visit the forest-rich area after a robust monsoon (like I did). The weather was cool, the sky pale azure and the spectacular cliff-and-ravine landscape green. But this gem of a place, 750 kilometres northeast of Mumbai in Maharashtra’s Amravati district, has an ugly side story: hunger and malnutrition have been killing tribal children and women here for years....

-The Hindu Women continue to be invisible to planners, despite their high levels of contribution to the national economy, says a UN Women paper on women and forests Some of the present policies in forest management are detrimental to the poor, particularly women, states a UN Women paper by NC Saxena, member National Advisory Council, even as he suggests changes that could ameliorate their condition. Despite economic growth, gender inequalities in “critical human development...

-The Hindu Mangalore: In what reveals the persistence of caste-based segregation of children in primary schools in rural Karnataka, around 13.7 per cent of Dalit children surveyed in the State have claimed that their teacher had asked them to sit separately from ‘higher caste’ children in the classroom, says a study released by the Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Mangalore University. Released on October 18 here, ‘Discrimination and...