-The Telegraph When the going gets cold, the comrades will get going. In the winter chill of December and January, leaders of the four Left parties, including CPM general secretary Prakash Karat and his CPI counterpart Sudhakar Reddy, would go from house to house to collect signatures. Their target: five crore signatures in favour of a universal public distribution system (PDS) to ensure food security for the poor and also the relatively affluent. While...

-The Hindustan Times India contributes more hungry people to the world each year than all other countries put together, and despite efforts, new figures suggest that hunger is far from contained - in fact we are worse off than we were more than a decade ago. According to the Global Hunger Index 2012, recently released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). India's rating was 22.6 in '96, 24.2 in '01...

-The Telegraph The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council has suggested revamping the way tribal and Dalit welfare programmes are now implemented, saying these have failed to make much difference to their lives. Council member N.C. Saxena told The Telegraph that the funds allotted for Dalit and tribal welfare schemes are now mostly spent on wider projects, diluting the benefits, which accrue to all rather than specifically to Dalits and tribals. The council examined...

-Mirror News Tax row coffee chain pays 'poverty wages' despite making £222 million profit in three months TAX row coffee chain Starbucks is paying workers just 25p an hour at its newly-opened stores in India. The pittance falls far below the country’s official living wage and means some staff earn less in a day than the price of the ­cheapest cup of Starbucks coffee in the UK. Details of the wages emerged as the...

-The Indian Express Farmers welcome the stand of the government of India on the outright rejection of the recommendations of the technical expert committee to the Supreme Court, which suggested that a moratorium be imposed on field trials of GM crops. The SC shot down the proposal of an interim moratorium that would have strangled technology and innovation in the country. The moratorium would have also prevented Indian scientists and companies...