-Livemint.com Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh have started their own versions of Tamil Nadu’s Amma canteens that provide food at heavily subsidized rates New Delhi: The late J. Jayalalithaa’s government in Tamil Nadu had launched Amma Unavagam (Mother’s canteen) with much fanfare in 2013. Meant to provide wholesome food at heavily subsidized rates, the canteens which are run by the government but staffed by women from self-help groups have been a runaway...

-The Hindu In the last three years, important entitlements for children have been undermined by the Centre The recent notification of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, making Aadhaar compulsory for midday meals in government schools, has attracted the criticism it deserves. This notification serves no clear purpose other than to force children to get enrolled under Aadhaar. The government, unfortunately, managed to create the impression that the notification had been retracted,...

-PTI New Delhi: The government is considering imposing import duty on wheat in order to protect farmers amid projections of a record output this year, Agriculture Secretary Shobhana K. Pattanayak said today. On December 8, the government had reduced customs duty on wheat to zero from 10 per cent to boost domestic availability and check retail prices. Now that the country is all set to harvest a record production of 96.64 million tonnes...

-PTI Nations such as China (79), Pakistan (80), Nepal (99), Bangladesh (110), Iraq (117) and Sri Lanka (120) fared better than India on the ranking. India ranked a lowly 122 on a list of the world’s happiest countries, dropping four slots from last year and coming behind China, Pakistan and Nepal. Norway ranks as the happiest country in the world, according to The World Happiness Report 2017, which ranks 155 countries...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A UN report released today has ranked India 131 out of 188 countries worldwide on human development and has cited figures suggesting that about half of India's people face deprivation in education, health and living standards. Inequality, multidimensional poverty and gender gaps appear to be factors holding back India's progress on the human development index (HDI), a measure linked to progress towards a long, healthy life, access to...