-io9.com Wheat and grain-based foods are all around us. We love our bagels, pasta, bread, and breakfast cereals. For many, the thought of eliminating these staples from our diets seems wholly unreasonable, if not ludicrous. But a growing number of people are switching to wheat-free diets — and for very good reason. As science is increasingly showing, eating wheat increases the potential for a surprising number of health problems. Here's why...

-The Times of India Crest Cash transfers have been described as the world's favourite new anti-poverty device. As India gets set to implement it, TOI-Crest finds out if the politics will ever be divorced from the cash The UPA government's ambitious plan to introduce direct cash transfers (DCT) by January 1, 2013 reflects both the political desperation of a beleaguered government and the urgent need to reform India's inefficient and corrupt public...

-The Hindu The U.S. special supplement scheme for women, infants and children to prevent undernutrition is a model that India can learn from India’s economic growth over the last 15 years, and the growing size of the middle class, have become a source of attraction for international investors, especially in the retail food industry. However, the gap between the rich and the poor has only widened: nearly 40 per cent of the...

On November 23, the Supreme Court is slated to hear a damning report submitted by the court-appointed Commissioners on how politically connected contractors—legally barred from the ICDS program—might be subverting the social welfare measure in the state of Maharashtra.  The ICDS is an Rs 8000 crore government-funded program aimed at ending India’s abysmal rates of child malnutrition by supplying hot cooked meals and take home rations to children through decentralised women-run,...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Family matters. If you are married and stay with your parents or siblings, you can double the quota of subsidized cooking gas cylinders to 12 from the government notified cap of 6 in a year. All you have to do is show a separate cooking platform or kitchen to avail of a second liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) connection. This should come as a big respite for those...