The hunger and malnutrition situation in the country has shown marginal improvement, according to the HUNGaMA report. ONE area that has always bothered policymakers in a growth-obsessed economy is the state of the social sector, in particular figures indicating the numbers of people going hungry or are homeless and children who are out of school, the poor nutritional status of women and children, and the high infant and maternal mortality rates....

Poor workers are being paid wages as low as Rs 1-10 for a hard day's labour in states like Rajasthan and Karnataka under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which promises a real wage of Rs 100 per day.  Documents with TOI show that many desperate, poor labourers across the country are being cheated of their hard earned money and the much publicized guaranteed daily wage of Rs 100...

-CNN-IBN   Contrary to the dominant narrative that areas where Naxalites are strong are where the state has been absent, for the last 100-150 years, there has been a gradual expansion of the state in tribal areas regardless of whether the people want it or not. However, the state has been expanding in the wrong areas. You have an extension of the forest department, the bureaucracy, the patwari and the forest guard....

Civil rights groups blame packaged food supplied to anganwadis  Close on the heels of the damning hunger and malnutrition (HUNGaMA) report, which found 42 per cent children below age five across India underweight and 59 per cent children stunted,  comes another report on the state of nutrition among children in Karnataka state. Over 1.2 million children in the state in the age group of 0-6 years are malnourished and underweight, says a...

-The Times of India   Struggling to stay relevant amid signs of growing popular indifference, Team Anna chose Republic Day to advocate radical ideas like putting gram sabhas above the Lok Sabha and establishing a referendum commission along the lines of Election Commission.  In a video message, activist Anna Hazare also praised the Lokayukta bill of Uttarakhand, in what may be seen as a surrogate campaign for the BJP in the state. He...