With the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) insisting on providing separate legal entitlements to some sections — pregnant women, lactating mothers, homeless, destitute and disaster affected households — in the proposed food security law, the Food Ministry is set to insist on state governments sharing the cost to fund the provisions for this special category of beneficiaries. Sources in the Food Ministry said the ministry has inserted “cost-sharing provisions” in...
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UP is home to people with dangerously wide gaps in skills, income and caste by Saurabh Johri
If Uttar Pradesh was to be declared a separate country today, it would be the sixth-largest nation. With a total population at par with Brazil, population density comparable to that of the UK and per-capita income similar to Kenya's, it indicates the paradox of its citizen occupying the same space as his Latin and UK counterparts, yet living in conditions similar to those in Africa. Setting this hypothesis aside, let us...
More »Doctor who was Saint of Smiles by Jaideep Hardikar
A life bound to a wheelchair, with speech inability and two heart attacks, would not seem like much of a life. But doctor Sharadkumar Dicksheet proved it wrong. In over four decades, Dicksheet performed over 2.5 lakh facial reconstructive surgeries for free. Until this winter, that is. He died on November 14 in Brooklyn, US. He was 81. Dicksheet has two daughters and a son from two marriages, neither of which lasted. What...
More »Tool of exclusion by Nikhil Dey
The UID in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act may simplify the administrator's task, but will not make a poor man's task any easier. EVERY time there is talk of tinkering with the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), it is time we recalled how and why the Act came into existence. The passage of the NREGA was Parliament's response to a people's movement that grew out of the recognition and...
More »Stunted growth by Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed
Child malnutrition in Gulbarga and Bijapur districts is a blot on Karnataka's image. Ba Ba Basavanna Anganwadi Hogona Avarekaalu Tinnona Ah, Aaa, Ee, Eee, Bariyona Mane Kadege Hogona (Come, Come, Basavanna Let's go to the anganwadi Let us eat beans And write A, B, C, D, And head towards home.) As Savitri Nimbad sings this ditty, the more than 20 children seated in a circle around her repeat each line in shrill voices. Almost all of them are between three and...
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