-CIVIC Bangalore, IT for Change, KRIA Katte, SVYM   The government is planning to amend the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) to keep political parties outside the purview of the RTI law. The amendments are planned in response to the recent Central Information Commission order, which held that political parties are public authorities under the RTI Act and therefore should be accountable to citizens of the country. The RTI Act is a...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Eliminating Planning Commission's role in etching the poverty line and instead tasking expert government agencies to determine India's below poverty line population may help depoliticize the exercise, a former top NSSO official has said. Former director-general of National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) Jogeshwar Dash feels the Planning Commission's mandate of framing policy clashes with estimating poverty ratios that are an outcome of strategies the panel devises. "Poverty...

-Down to Earth Centre wants to treat anaemia with iron tablets. Can pills substitute nutritious food? Eleven-year-old Indumati Katla, who lives in Wazirpur, Delhi, went to school on July 17. There, her class teacher asked her to gulp down a maroon tablet. Two hours later, she was in hospital recuperating from severe nausea, giddiness and fatigue. She was among the 200 government school students in Delhi who fell ill that day after...

-The Pioneer A reality check for the ever- increasing inflation era exposes the farce of Government-sponsored Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS). When pulses are priced at Rs 90 per kg, inferior quality of rice or wheat at Rs 20 per kg, vegetables at Rs 40 a kg and edible oil over at Rs 100 per kg, providing a quality meal at Rs 3.34 to a child is impossible. According to several NGOs/SHGs...

-The Hindustan Times Nutrition and attendance, these are the two cornerstones in the drive for the universalisation of education. And it was precisely these two reasons that the scheme to provide mid-day meals (MDM) was launched in State-run schools. This way poor children would be encouraged to attend school regularly and second, they would receive adequate nutrition. But unfortunately, as two back-to-back incidents, the first in Bihar and the second in Rajasthan,...