-The Business Standard Food insecurity and hunger are rooted in bad policies, faulty design, poor governance and a lack of political will According to the latest Global Hunger Report, India continues to be in the category of those nations where hunger is "alarming". What is worse, despite high growth, the hunger index in India between 1996 and 2011 has gone up from 22.9 to 23.7. National Sample Survey Organisation data show that...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) at Rohini has begun a fresh round of recruitments. That may help in clearing the huge backlog of cases here which hampers investigation and delivery of justice. There were 8991 cases pending till the beginning of this year. The pendency was highest in the chemistry unit with 5433 cases. Though there are 337 sanctioned posts at FSL, a staggering 194 are...

-The Hindu     There is little demonstrated evidence of health benefits from access to ‘improved' stoves and clean fuels Around three billion of the world's poorest people have to burn firewood, animal dung, crop waste and coal to cook food and heat homes, using traditional stoves and open fires. The health-damaging smoke that results is estimated to cause some four million premature deaths each year, principally of women and children. Although many governments, multinational...

-The Hindu     The killings of Mahendra Karma and his colleagues call not for retributive violence but for a deeper reflection on the discontent among the tribals of central India and their dispossession In the summer of 2006, I had a long conversation with Mahendra Karma, the Chhattisgarh Congress leader who was killed in a terror attack by the Naxalites last week. I was not alone - with me were five other members...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: Women health workers in Madhya Pradesh are refusing to distribute condoms in a government-sponsored family planning measure, citing it as an exercise 'against their dignity'. "We are working for the implementation of other schemes and initiatives, but this is awkward. It is against our dignity," said Mithlesh Vishwakarma, president of ASHA (accredited social health activists) workers association in Damoh district. ASHA workers are either daughters- in-law or...