-The Hindu Other States in India can study how the family planning programme has worked in Kerala and incorporate those features in their own programmes The recent tragedy of several women losing their lives in the state-sponsored tubectomy camp in Takhatpur, Chhattisgarh, has caused severe damage to the national family planning programme. This, however, is not an invalidation of the importance of sterilisation as an integral part of the programme, but only...

-Frontline The Left and other national parties protest against the NDA government's attempts to dilute the MGNREGS by limiting its budget and reducing its reach. IN a rare show of solidarity, representatives of several political parties took issue with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on its controversial proposal to restructure the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The opposition, which was initially confined to the...

-The Business Standard Scheme faces pincer attack with a proposed higher proportion of expenditure on material, reducing the budget available to pay wages The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) faces a pincer attack under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, with parallel moves promising to shrink and mutate the nature of the scheme. Two of the moves have been revealed - a proposed higher proportion of expenditure on material,...

-Down to Earth India presents its case on potential damage posed by WTO's trade facilitation agreement; civil society groups support India India made a strong pitch for food stockpiling for public food security at the 41st session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) earlier this month at the FAO headquarters in Rome. The meeting of the intergovernmental body, attended by representatives of governments, UN food agencies, civil society and private...

-The Week Shambhu Kumar, 8, quite liked his job as a domestic help in a small town in Assam. He had to mind two children nearly his age, keep an eye on the ducks and be available for chores all day. It wasn't too hard, and he was well fed, too, though he missed his grandmother, a tea garden labourer. One day, some women from the state education department came to the...