-The Business Standard   The food security ordinance would empower poor urban migrants to challenge denial of ration cards The new Food Security Ordinance provides virtually nothing and yet quite a lot. What it provides is food as a legal right. And that means a lot for a poor migrant in a city chawl, with no local address proof, having left all identity cards back in their native village and unable to claim anything...

-The Indian Express India is at the point where a low income democracy cannot afford to ignore the hungry Is India's food security ordinance supportable? The debate has been vigorous. It will help to separate the questions of process from those of principle. Whether an ambitious scheme of this magnitude should have been brought in as an executive ordinance or as a new law after parliamentary debate, is basically a procedural question. It...

-The Indian Express The recent conviction of eight persons for spreading Naxalism in urban areas of Chhattisgarh again underlines a paradox in the functioning of investigation and prosecution wings of the police. Though the state has consistently topped the chart of Maoist violence across the country, it is yet to secure a single conviction in assault cases. In fact, all the accused even in a high-profile incident like the Tadmetla ambush,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The World Health Organisation wants India's public to give up Bollywood songs as caller tunes on their mobile phones and replace them with short health messages from superstars of India's entertainment industry. The global health agency today launched what is being dubbed as the world's first attempt to promote health campaigns via caller tunes, drawing on the voices of 10 personalities from Bollywood and other entertainment sectors. Amitabh Bachchan's...

-The Economic Times The monsoon made a dream start this year. Bountiful rainfall in June has prepared the ground for bumper harvest and lower food inflation. But don't celebrate. Look beyond the immediate future and good monsoon this year may not really be good news. It has merely delayed an agricultural crisis, which our complacent policymakers perhaps need to jolt them into action. With food demand rising in step with the growing...