-The Hindustan Times Children represent not only India’s future, but are also integral to securing India’s present. Yet, development indicators continue to show slow progress towards securing their welfare and delivering their basic rights. The very survival of over a million newborns in the country every year continues to be at risk. Prospects for girls in particular are getting grimmer, with successive Census figures revealing a declining sex ratio. About 44%...

-The Hindu Kota, Rajasthan: The sun is about to set over grey-brown slabs in sandstone quarries in Kota district, Rajasthan. Babulal Khairwa sits at the edge of a quarry and attentively hits a taanki, a chisel shaped like a gigantic nail, placed on the stone with a hammer. Babulal hits the stone with the hammer till it cracks in a straight line. Each 2 by 10 square feet foot slab, or...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...

-The Indian Express Addressing an auditorium brimming with at least 2,000 people at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Nobel laureate and economist Amartya Sen, at a panel discussion on 'Hunger and Nutrition', laid out his vision for why food security should get top priority in the country. Outside the hallowed halls of IIT Delhi, the UPA's National Food Security Bill is being debated publicly in states and the Standing Committee...

-Pratirodh.com Speaking to an enthralled audience of 1,500 students and faculty at IIT (Delhi) , Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said that the idea of the National Food Security Bill was “a matter of appreciation and support”, and that the tabling of the Bill in Parliament was in itself a big achievement.  However, he also drew attention to various shortcomings of the Bill and argued for it to be strengthened, particularly in...