-The Indian Express I recently witnessed protests in Berlin, against industrialised farming and the planned free-trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, under the banner "We Are Fed Up". Trade issues resonate across Europe, but in India, farmers are oblivious to the inevitable consequences of trade agreements. However, the government seems keen to address issues related to farmers. Yet, success on the farm front can be delusional if...

-The Hindustan Times A United Nations report on Wednesday asked the government to increase focus on rights-based programmes - like the job guarantee and food security schemes - to eradicate poverty while praising PM Narendra Modi's financial inclusion scheme, the Jan Dhan Yojana. The UN report on India and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes at a time when the central government has cut the budget for social sector schemes and initiated...

-The Indian Express As the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) enters its 10th year on Monday, data shows households have been provided employment for just a little over one third of the mandated 100 days so far this financial year on an average. By March end, this could improve a bit, but still end up among the lowest averages since the inception of the Act. According to data available...

-Scroll.in The strongest safeguard against fraud is not end-to-end computerisation but clarity of entitlements: if people know what is due to them, they will fight for it. In a stunning admission of party hypocrisy, former Food Minister Shanta Kumar recently stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party's support for the National Food Security Act last year was just a pretence. Remember, when the act was being discussed in Parliament, BJP leaders (from Narendra...

-Tehelka Why is India struggling to feed its girls and women, who are in desperate need of nutrition, asks Ruhi Kandhari One out of three women or adolescent girls who come through that door are anaemic," says Dr Savita Agarwal, who runs a charitable clinic at a slum in north Delhi, pointing at the door of her clinic. "They cannot afford to eat meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables that provide iron." Fifty percent...