-The Times of India It appears to be one step forward and two steps back for the government in so far as pruning of fuel subsidy bill is concerned. The latest example is the oil ministry's order asking state-run fuel retailers to supply cooking gas cylinders at subsidized rate to non-domestic consumers such as canteens, medical institutions and mid-day meal kitchens. The order on cooking gas, issued on Tuesday, comes close on...

-Kafila.org This statement was put out by the RIGHT TO FOOD CAMPAIGN on 24 January The much awaited recommendations of the Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution on the National Food Security Bill are a letdown to those who wrote to the Committee urging it to ensure justice to the people of India.  The Committee despite taking a year since December 2011 when the Bill was tabled in the...

-Kafila.org The village of Majure, in Chitradurga district, Karnataka, is once again in the news. It made the national headlines in 1998 when dalits in the village lodged a police complaint against members of the dominant Vokkaliga and Lingayat castes for an attack on their hamlet. As a consequence, several people were put behind bars. This time round, however, no formal complaint was lodged. Not that things have improved (rather, one could...

-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...

-The Hindu Children form main part of workforce in Murshidabad Dolly Khatun was about five-year-old when she first handled bidis, helping her mother with odd jobs like fetching and carrying the ingredients from the village vendor and returning the finished bundles, cutting the kendu leaves into strips and counting the rolled bidis into a bunch. Within a couple of years, she was fully trained and over the past 10 years she has...