-The Hindu A committed team of Dalit activists and academicians are working to establish a presence on social media New Delhi: Long time social media refusenik, the Bahujan Samaj Party, is embracing Twitter and Facebook ahead of the 2017 UP Assembly elections but with a difference. By focussing on issues the party supremo Mayawati has been lampooned for, concerted efforts are being made by academics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) with help...

-The Indian Express The Centre is pushing and many states are implementing Direct Benefit Transfers – and encountering little political opposition The entire focus on ushering in a direct benefit transfer (DBT) regime for delivering subsidies to the targeted populations has so far centered around cooking gas, and to some extent, on isolated pilot experiments with food subsidy. Agriculture subsidies, especially on inputs other than fertilisers, have largely escaped attention in...

-The Indian Express The Rajasthan government has said the state’s record has been exemplary in making the transition from the older ration card-based system to using Aadhaar. Jaipur: Food security activists and economists have expressed concern at the exclusion of thousands of PDS beneficiaries in Rajasthan owing to glitches in the Aadhaar enabled electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) device. The Aadhaar enabled ePoS is dealing a double blow to the state’s public distribution...

-The Indian Express PDS has improved in the state, but it’s still not up to the mark. Recent media reports suggest that the public distribution system (PDS) in West Bengal is now “doing enormously well” — as one headline put it. Some also claim that this has contributed to the victory of the Trinamool Congress in the latest assembly elections. Since we were involved in the survey cited in these reports, we...

-The Hindu MSF Secretary General Jerome Oberreit on the increasing threat to affordable health care worldwide. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Doctors without Borders, the international humanitarian medical aid organisation that is active in 69 countries, serves populations affected by epidemics, armed conflicts, natural calamities and manmade disasters. MSF has relied heavily on generic drugs, much of which has been sourced from India, to deliver health care to some of the most...