-The Indian Express The decision puts to an end a long-drawn disagreement between Maneka and NITI Aayog, with the former batting for packaged nutrients and the latter wanting to substitute food with cash given to beneficiaries through direct benefit transfer. The National Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges has rejected Woman and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi’s longstanding, much-debated proposal to provide packaged nutrients to replace the existing take-home rations across 14 lakh-odd...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Reena, a single mother, has been unable to acquire Scheduled Caste certificates for her children as her RTI (Right to Information) application filed in 2016, still remains unanswered. “I had applied for Scheduled Caste certificates for my children but was told by the Revenue Department that the caste certificate of the father needs to be provided. In 2016, I filed the RTI application seeking information on the documents...

-PTI The Supreme Court will hear the Centre's plea seeking a review of its judgment on the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on May 3. Attorney General K.K. Venugopal mentioned the matter for early hearing before a bench comprising Justices A.K. Goel and Deepak Gupta and said he had already filed his written submission in the matter. “The last line of your last order says that list...

-Livemint.com India’s weather office has forecast a normal monsoon. Bountiful rains in the June-to-September period are critical for about 800 million Indians who depend directly or indirectly on farming New Delhi: Gangabhishan Thaware, a 53-year-old farmer from the drought-prone Marathwada region of Maharashtra, took an unusual step in July last year. Thaware and his fellow villagers had toiled on their fields and spent thousands of rupees on seeds and fertilizers, hopeful...

  There is some bad news for the world’s largest democracy. Thanks to the vitiated atmosphere induced by troll attacks on scribes on social media, among other things, the country's World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) ranking has fallen two places to 138th position.   Among 180 countries, India ranked 136th last year with a score of 42.94. However, in 2018 it attained 138th position with a score of 43.24 according to the...