-Huffington Post NEW DELHI: It is still not certain whether the monsoons will be as "good" this year as early forecasts suggest, but at least the rains are here and are making their way across India, bringing long-awaited and direly needed succor to millions in 13 drought-ravaged states. It comes as a massive relief that people in the worst-hit areas will have water to drink and so will their animals who...
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Panchayati Raj Ministry: A downgrade for democracy -Mani Shankar Aiyar
-The Hindu Confining it to just the Ministry of Rural Development would be the most retrograde step in democratic decentralisation in over a quarter century. If, as The Hindu’s exclusive on Wednesday indicates, Prime Minister Narendra Modi were to close down the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, it would confirm one’s worst fears about his government’s hypocritical approach to grass-roots democracy for grass-roots development. This was a lacuna that was evident in the ‘Gujarat...
More »Food Security Act: How are India’s poorest states faring? -Jean Drèze, Prankur Gupta, Reetika Khera and Isabel Pimenta
-Ideas for India The National Food Security Act was passed in 2013. This column reports findings from a recent survey on the status of the Act in six of India’s poorest states. Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal are doing quite well - the PDS is in good shape and most people are covered; however, Bihar and Jharkhand are yet to complete essential PDS reforms. A survey of the National Food...
More »The drought you didn't hear about: Villagers in Gujarat know a good monsoon won’t bail them out -Aarefa Johari
-Scroll.in The government is calling it 'semi-scarcity'. In barren Saurashtra, farmers say that water promised to them from the Narmada project has not been reliable. For almost three years, bathing has been a luxury for Manjuben Jhala. The 50-year-old dairy farmer from Sowarada village has spent all her summer days herding cattle across the barren landscape of Gujarat’s Jamnagar district, in search of fodder and a few scoops of water for her frail...
More »Server glitch hits distribution of food grains -PJ Joychen
-The Times of India Jaipur: Frequent snags in the server of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) have led to disruption in the distribution of food grains through the fair price shops in Rajasthan resulting in many violent incidents in the state. The state government has sought the help of the Union food ministry to take up the matter with UIDAI. Dr Subodh Agarwal, principal secretary, food and consumer affairs of...
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