-Down to Earth The most controversial aspect of the food security law is the restructuring of the public distribution system to cover an unprecedented 67 per cent of the population, most of them in the poorer states. LATHA JISHNU, JYOTIKA SOOD and SUCHITRA M explain why there are winners and losers in the new dispensation and how states with better PDS will have to find huge resources to keep their numbers...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Chances of getting killed in a road accident is the highest in Amritsar and in the country's Mercedes capital Ludhiana. Latest data on road fatalities shows that at least six people died in every 10 road crashes in these two cities in 2012 against only three in Delhi, which recorded maximum fatalities in 2012. Though Mumbai recorded the highest number of accidents among 50 million-plus cities,...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Kozhikode: Dubai's agriculture minister recently chartered a flight to Kozhikode and, accompanied by a horticulture consultant, headed to the Agriculture Research Station (ARS) at Anakkayam nearby. There the minister, Abdulla Jassim Abdulla M Almarzooqi, placed orders for fruits, spices and ornamental plants. But on his mind was something bigger. He offered free visas and air tickets to the 100 members of the research station's agricultural army, which rather grandly goes...

-The Hindu For a scheme that the Central government has declared an essential arm of its educational and nutritional objectives in the last three days, both the Central and the State governments have shown a remarkable lack of concern for the 27 lakh workers, most of them women, who administer it. The tragedy that killed 23 children in Bihar's Chapra village last Tuesday has shone a rare spotlight on India's mid-day meal...

-The Hindu Indentured labour may be a forgotten part of our colonial economic history but Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh are still sending ‘Girmitya' to toil in distant lands The descendants of indentured labourers, who migrated from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to erstwhile colonies, recently met at The Hague in the Netherlands to commemorate 140 years of migration - perpetuated through a system popularly known as ‘Girmit.' They gathered from all...