-The Hindu Two years after vociferously arguing for an expansion of the provisions of the National Food Security Act, the BJP in government is bleeding it with a thousand cuts, both fiscal and otherwise When Parliament passed the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, it had already become one of the most debated pieces of legislation in decades. Those for and against it had fought it out across yards of space...

-The Hindu Business Line Don’t let Modi’s gloss undermine the efforts and achievements of the UPA government, says the former Prime Minister This is the text of a speech delivered at the Congress chief ministers’ conclave in New Delhi on June 9 There is somewhat of a euphoria that our GDP growth since 2014-15 has started accelerating once again. But doubts have been expressed both within and outside government about the validity of...

-IPS News BETUL, India- Mamta Bai, 36, distinctly remembers the first time the police came to her village: it was December 2014 and her neighbour, Purva Bai, had just been beaten unconscious by her alcoholic husband, prompting Mamta to make a distress call to the nearest station. Once in the neighborhood, policemen pulled the abusive husband out of his home and asked the village women if they wanted him to be arrested. “Yes,”...

-The Hans India Warangal: Hunger and starvation coupled with denial of rights provide a fertile ground for the growth of Left Wing Extremism (LWE). The flustered forest-dwellers of the four districts – Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam — who had been struggling against the might of the State, represented by a despotic forest department, appears to be losing their direction for the means of livelihood as the Forest Rights Act remained a ‘paper...

-ANI Greening the barren land in Jharkhand and West Bengal Deoghar: Standing amid the road in Kasuadi village in Jharkhand, Deevani Mahato looks intently towards the contrasting landscape stretching across on both sides of the road. Wet green fields of wheat, mustard and grams, separated by the bunds of mud, cover the land on one side. Barren tracts of red soil full of dry bushes and stones stretch on the other. "By next...