-Frontline The Central government's proposal to hand over the supply of supplementary nutrition to NGOs in the name of "community participation" is surely an invitation for private profiteering on the back of this supposedly public scheme. ENSURING safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the...

-The Hindu     13 tribal children have died in Attappady of Palakkad district this year Palakkad: Kerala's claims to world fame for its high human development indices appear to be tottering with children in the tribal heartland of Attappady in Palakkad district dying of malnutrition. In the last 15 months, as many as 29 children died of malnutrition, 13 of them this year. Two more deaths were reported from the area over the past...

-The Hindustan Times Far from the neatly trimmed lawns of India Gate that so often reverberate with cries for justice, far also from the corridors of power where ministries recently squabbled over the right age for consensual sex, lie 197 districts - yes 197, read the figure again - where children are regularly abused. In these districts -- all ridden by conflict -- words like illegal detention, arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, torture...

-Live Mint MoEF notification on 5 February says linear projects such as roads, canals wouldn't require gram sabha consent A move by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to exempt promoters of so-called linear projects such as roads, pipelines and canals from seeking the consent of village councils in forest areas will likely be a non-starter unless the government moves to amend the forest rights Act (FRA). MoEF issued a notification on...

-The Hindu India has registered higher infant and child mortality rates than Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Further the country’s position on the measure of the percentage of underweight and severely underweight children during the period 2006-10 was more than twice than that in the Sub-Saharan African region. This was revealed in the Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s performance audit of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme — Union Ministry of...