-Frontline Reinstatement of the fundamental right to property in the Constitution will on its own do little to protect the interests of poor peasants and traditional communities.  The Indian Constitution adopted in 1950 guaranteed a set of fundamental rights that cannot be abridged by Central or State laws. One of these fundamental rights was the right to property enshrined in Articles 19(1)(f) and 31. Article 19(1)(f) guaranteed to all citizens the right...

-The Times of India The Medical Council of India (MCI) has finally cleared introduction of the three-and-a-half-year long medical course. Calling it BSc in Community Health, it will be open to anybody after class 12. Speaking to TOI, MCI board chairman Dr K K Talwar said this special cadre of health workers will be trained mainly in district hospitals, be placed in sub-centres or primary health centres and will be taught "some...

-Frontline Thanks to the Bombay High Court, interventions to tackle the decades-long problem of malnutrition among children in the Melghat area of eastern Maharashtra could be better managed. The court has directed the State government to track children and mothers using a management information system (MIS). The court’s directive came on a petition filed on July 20 by an Amravati-based NGO, Khoj, regarding the abysmal conditions in the Melghat region that were...

-Frontline Members of denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, treated as criminal tribes by the colonial rulers, have no place to call their own and no land, no rights, and no support from the government.  Emaciated, eyes sunken deep into sockets, skin hanging loose, almost gasping for breath, Indro Devi and Sarvnath, a couple in their eighties, lie on polythene sheets in an 8×10 square-foot tent made of rags, by a stinking nullah...

-The Times of India An SMS alert that tells the position of stocks in ration shops. A front-to-back computerization tracking food grain movement from procurement to rations shops. And a swipe card to allow BPL users to access subsidized food grain. A two-stage Rs 4,200 crore recast of India's notoriously leaky public distribution system (PDS) is likely to considered by the Cabinet on Monday along with a Rs 1.25 lakh crore expansion...