-The Hindu     Bench issues notice to Centre and 12 States The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre and 12 States seeking their response on steps taken to ensure cleanliness in the Midday meal scheme and to prevent incidents like the one that occurred last month in a government primary school in a Bihar village, where 23children died after eating contaminated food. The States to which a Bench of Chief Justice...

-Frontline The Midday meal scheme is a grand idea in a flawed school system. "THEY played here, studied here and got buried here!" (Yahin khela, yahin padha aur yahin ho gaya dafan). With these emphatic words, grieving parents buried the bodies of two children within the compound of the Dharmasati Gandaman Primary School of Masharakh block in Saran district of Bihar. This sentiment was expressed with great dignity even in the...

-One World South Asia The mid-day meal tragedy in Bihar has drawn attention directly to the way we articulate and work for educational entitlements, writes Parvinder Singh and Priyanka Sarkar. Lucknow: It takes an informed and empowered community to harvest the fruits of educational entitlements, including non-discriminatory access to Midday meals. The promises made in the Right to Education Act can only be wrested as rights when they are owned by the...

-The Hindu Per capita entitlements under the food security bill will not cover beneficiaries as comprehensively as household entitlements The government hopes to secure in this session of Parliament, approval for the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) so that it can replace the food security ordinance. The NFSB, on which the ordinance is based, guarantees supplementary nutrition services through anganwadis for all children under six, Midday meals for schoolchildren, and, very importantly, maternity...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: Taking note of a report published in Newsline on Wednesday, the Delhi High Court has asked the Delhi government and the three civic agencies to look into the issue of why the Midday meals supplied to students in schools run by the three civic agencies of the capital are not up to the prescribed standards. The High Court bench of Acting Chief Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad and...