Many Indians eat poorly. Would a “right to food” help? “LOOK at this muck,” says 35-year-old Pamlesh Yadav, holding up a tin-plate of bilious-yellow grains, a mixture of wheat, rice and mung beans. “It literally sticks in the throat. The children won’t eat it, so we take it home and feed it to the cows.” Mrs Yadav has brought her children to a state-run nursery in Bhindusi village in rural Rajasthan. The...

Contractors complete the work by employing some other labourers and using machines An inquiry into the lathi-charge on protesting farmers in Koppal has brought to light the nexus between contractors and labourers. The inquiry conducted by the Koppal taluk panchayat executive officer in all the five gram panchayats - Boodagumpa, Irkalgad, Hasgal, Indargi and Madinur - has revealed that the labourers who staged the protest had not registered themselves seeking jobs under...

Evidence is mounting on the ill-effects of Endosulfan sprayed on cashew plantations in Kasaragod district, even as the Union government continues to be ambivalent on the issue. A survey done by the Health Department has identified nearly 4,000 victims after screening 16,000. The household survey and the screening done in 11 affected panchayats during December and January identified 3,937 victims, besides 336 in nearby panchayats. The numbers are likely to go...

Authorities in Chandigarh don't seem to be doing enough for raising literacy rate as compared to other states and union territories. In 2011, the city came down to eighth position on the all-India literacy list. In the 2001 census, it had the sixth highest literacy rate in the country. This happened in spite of increase in overall literacy here. Though Chandigarh has achieved the Planning Commission target of 85% literacy, it couldn't...

An evaluation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the State has found several shortcomings in the implementation including corruption, inefficiency and lack of awareness about the programme. The draft of the evaluation, conducted by two researchers of the National Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) has found that while the rules stipulate that each worker entitled to get 100 days of employment under the scheme should have...