-Down to Earth The most controversial aspect of the food security law is the restructuring of the public distribution system to cover an unprecedented 67 per cent of the population, most of them in the poorer states. LATHA JISHNU, JYOTIKA SOOD and SUCHITRA M explain why there are winners and losers in the new dispensation and how states with better PDS will have to find huge resources to keep their numbers...

-Economic and Political Weekly The government has notified a Draft Land Reforms Policy which, on paper, has all the requisites of an earnest programme. Yet, the near total failure of earlier efforts at land reforms in India leave little room for hope that something substantial will at last be done to combat landlessness. Harsh Mander (manderharsh@gmail.com) is with the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi, and works with survivors of mass violence,...

-The Hindu Health activists demand public disclosure of maternal death reviews and the remedial action taken Twenty-two-year-old Kousalya (name changed), a Scheduled Caste woman in a remote village in Karnataka, was in an abusive marriage. She had suffered a late miscarriage in her first pregnancy and had been very careful with seeking antenatal care early in this pregnancy. She had moderate anaemia which was not identified or treated at the taluka hospital....

-The Business Standard Growth, not entitlement, reduces poverty, according to the latest data The numbers may seem unrealistic, but the broad indication is loud and clear: among all available medicines, growth seems to be the most effective medicine against poverty at the moment. According to the recently released poverty data, states like Odisha, Bihar and Rajasthan have done well when it comes to reducing poverty in the last seven years. And these...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: For the Akhilesh Yadav government, the burgeoning unemployment problem comes as a daunting challenge. The 66th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report puts the projection of unemployed youth in Uttar Pradesh in the age group of 15-35 at whopping 1 crore by the end of the ongoing 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17). They will be in addition to the backlog of around 32...