-The Hindu Restricting the price subsidy to coarse grains alone will not only work better from both fiscal and equity points of view but also weaken the incentives for graft The National Food Security Act (NFSA), passed recently by Parliament, offers 5 kg per person a month of cereals at highly subsidised prices to more than the bottom two-thirds of the population. It has been rightly hailed as the largest welfare programme...

-Outlook As subsidies for the poor continue to be under attack, a ground-up report from 10-states shows how well welfare schemes have worked over the last 10 years. Ahead of Elections 2014, rights-based welfare schemes are under attack. To those who argue ‘Dolenomics' doesn't work, a survey of five schemes in 10 states shows that the Rs 1,68,478 crore annually the nation spends is making a real and tangible difference on...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has declined to entertain a plea that women be allowed to medically terminate pregnancy after the 20-week deadline fixed by law as many carry foetuses with abnormalities in the last trimester. A bench of Justices S.J. Mukhopadhyaya and Kurien Joseph declined to pass any order on the plea and instead allowed counsel Divya Jyothi to withdraw the petition with liberty to come out with an...

-FAO Per capita vegetable production in Asia and the Pacific has increased some 25 percent over the last decade. Yet, while Asian countries produce more than three-quarters of the world's vegetables, they and other producers worldwide will need to dramatically increase their vegetable production by 47 percent to meet the nutritional needs of a growing population which would exceed nine billion by 2050, FAO warned today. According to a UN report, with...

-The Indian Express ‘Infertility treatment' in a remote village of Satna district left Anju Kushwaha with 10 dead foetuses and no hope Doctors consider it unlikely they will ever see a case like hers again. Anju Kushwaha, 26, is sure she is never returning to them. The woman who carried and lost 10 foetuses - the maximum borne by a woman in India - is spent, in money, energy and hope. Working...