-The Economic Times The Food Security Act would encourage below poverty line women to have more children, defeating the government's population-control efforts, says one of the 1.6 lakh opinions the standing committee on food and consumer affairs has received. The suggestion, hence, is to remove pregnant women from the list of beneficiaries of the food security bill. This is not the only shocking suggestion. Another suggestion is to avoid nutritional protection to...

-The Hindu One in eight people, or 12.5 per cent of the world’s population, is chronically undernourished today says the latest State of Food Insecurity (SOFI) report. The grave ethical and practical implications of this abominable statistic from the three Rome-based United Nations agencies are obvious. Not least because mass hunger is a man-made phenomenon. Historically, hunger and starvation have been caused not by shortfalls in food production but rather by...

-Pratirodh.com Biometric data based 12 digit Unique Identification (UID)-Aadhaar Number linked welfare schemes is being bulldozed with 2014 elections in mind with the ulterior motive of altering voting behavior of the citizens by creating a ‘universal identity infrastructure’ linked to ‘unified payment infrastructure’.   Ahead of next parliamentary elections, with the launch of 21st crore UID-Aadhaar Number and Aadhaar Enabled Service Delivery (AESD) on October 20, 2012 contemptuously ignores Parliament, Parliamentary Committee,...

-The Hindustan Times The number of infants (below age of one year) succumbing in state has gone down by three for every 1000 children born in the course of last year. Good news, but with a rider. The state continues to retain the infamous tag of being the worst place to be born in the country as it still records the highest infant mortality rate (IMR) among the 29 states and...

-The Indian Express  If the latest report on status of children by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is any indication, then the fate of children in India is grim. While child sex-ratios have dipped and child labour continues to be a problem, the report states that crime against children have scaled up with no end in sight to the plight of girl child. The report, Children in India 2012 -...