-Live Mint In the past year, ration cards are being replaced with smartcards that can track food doled out through the PDS system New Delhi: Mohanlal Kapoor, a street vendor in north India, holds a card entitling him to subsidized food for his wife and four children. To get supplies, the Kapoors must battle an estimated 15 million families in their state toting similar pieces of paper that they're not entitled...

-Outlook The faecal matter hits the rotary blades, politically-but we're still staring at a sanitation disaster "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate mostly besides the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover." -V.S. Naipaul An Area of Darkness, 1964 Not...

-The Indian Express To address the crisis of rising unemployment, first fix labour laws. That there haven't been too many protests against the elevated levels of consumer price inflation for several years probably has to do with the number of jobs being created. While UPA 1 had a poor track record, and only 3 million new jobs were created between 2004-05 and 2009-10, National Sample Survey (NSS) data shows the situation improved...

-The Hindustan Times Mumbai: The number of missing children is constantly rising. While proper mechanism for their rehabilitation is yet to be a reality, a majority of these kids are trafficked. Areas bordering Nepal and Bangladesh are most prone to human trafficking, say reports. A study on missing and trafficked children from border areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is being carried out by Gram Niyojan Kendra as part of the ‘Missing Children...

-The Hindustan Times For the past three years, Kunwar Pal is looking for his missing 12-year-old son. He tries to follow every lead that he gets and travels across the city and nearby towns in the search of his son who went missing in November 2003 from Sangam Vihar in south Delhi. He regularly visits the police station, where he had registered a missing persons' complaint and pastes photos of his son...