-The Hindu The imposition of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication in the Public Distribution System threatens to disrupt recent progress with PDS reforms. It also deprives millions of people of essential food entitlements. India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) has improved steadily during the last 10 years. The system used to be most ineffective and corruption-ridden, with leakages of around 50 per cent at the national level, going up to 80 or 90 per cent...

-The Times of India Mumbai: In an audit of 11 leading private charitable hospitals in the city, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has found that seven were wrongly billing poor patients and charging hefty deposits during admission. Most hospitals reserved less than the stipulated number of beds for the poor, thereby depriving many of quality healthcare. The charity commissioner too has been pulled up for bad implementation of...

-The Hindu Business Line The PMUY scheme, under which the poor get subsidised LPG connection, addresses an urgent need. At the same time, it can turn out to be a political masterstroke for the BJP, write Richa Mishra and Debabrata Das The kitchen has always played an important role in Indian politics. Leaders across political parties have cooked their electoral fortunes with the kitchen as the integral ingredient. While some distributed highly...

-The Hindu We need to rethink social safety nets in India’s growing economy so that they can also focus on the accidents of life rather than solely on the accidents of birth. Sometimes the grand narratives of the Left and the Right do not seem to have any relationship with the lived experiences of ordinary Indians. For the past two decades, the Left has tried to expand social welfare programmes for the...

-The Hindu India must convert its young population to a competitive advantage, and nutrition and health are foundational to that outcome. The “Global Nutrition Report 2016” once again demonstrates India’s slow overall progress in addressing chronic malnutrition, manifest in stunting (low weight for age), wasting (low weight for height), micronutrient deficiencies and over-weight. Our track record in reducing the proportion of undernourished children over the past decade has been modest at best,...