Food entitlement schemes that are aimed to provide food security to children are not being properly implemented in the Left Front-ruled West Bengal. According to Food Entitlements in West Bengal: Survey on Supreme Court Orders, about 41.2 lakh children, which comprises nearly 40 per cent children in the age group of zero to six years are not covered under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). The ICDS is one of...

Food entitlement schemes that are aimed to provide food security to children are not being properly implemented in the Left Front-ruled West Bengal. According to Food Entitlements in West Bengal: Survey on Supreme Court Orders, about 41.2 lakh children, which comprises nearly 40 per cent children in the age group of zero to six years are not covered under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). The ICDS is one of the most...

Sunita Laxman Jadhav is a door-to-door saleswoman who sells waiting. She sweeps along muddy village lanes in her nurse’s white sari, calling on newly married couples with an unblushing proposition: Wait two years before getting pregnant, and the government will thank you. It also will pay you. “I want to tell you about our honeymoon package,” began Ms. Jadhav, an auxiliary nurse, during a recent house call on a new bride in...

The Centre plans to open over 1,000 residential schools for girls in backward and remote areas as part of its plan to universalise education. The National Sample Survey has found out that over 81 lakh children aged 6 to 13 years remain out of school and that most of them are girls. The human resource development ministry has told the finance ministry it wants to set up 1,073 new Kasturba Gandhi Balika...

Over the past three years, the number of attacks on schools has seen a steep rise. The argument advanced by the Naxals is that schools have become police stations and security forces take cover here. To substantiate their claim they have never attacked a school when children were in it and attacks have always taken place when the school premises were closed. Security personnel who battle the Naxals however claim that...