-Daily Bhaskar   The malnourished children in tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh were subjected to drug trials by doctors at their clinics in defiance of set norms. Documents accessed by DNA reveal that 20 malnourished children who suffered tuberculosis were tested for Bonnisan – an ayurvedic drug manufactured by Indian pharmaceutical company – at Nainpur in Mandla district. All the patients were in infancy or early childhood. Their age ranged from 8 months...

While some may view the food security Bill as the instrument of combating poverty, this distinction belongs to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the flagship anti-poverty programme of the United Progressive Alliance government. The proponents of the food security Bill at the National Advisory Council have promoted it as the instrument of fighting widespread and rising hunger, instead. But what is the empirical basis of the claims of widespread and...

If we get it right, the Food Security Bill carries the potential to alter the destinies of millions of India's poor and disadvantaged people, by assuring them as a legal right sufficient food to live with dignity. It was approved by the Cabinet after over two years of intense, sometimes fractious debate. Opinion in the Cabinet itself was reportedly divided around the proposed law. Gaping divisions persist, even as the...

Most of the respondents in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala prefer an effective PDS to cash transfer. THE survey of the public distribution system (PDS) in nine States, of which I was a part in Himachal Pradesh (Sirmaur district), Uttar Pradesh (Jaunpur district) and Kerala (Wayanad district), came as an eye-opener to me on many counts. If Himachal Pradesh stood out for the innocence of its people, Uttar Pradesh...

The implementation of the ‘100 days work' scheme in West Bengal had become a poll issue during the last parliamentary and assembly elections as had some other Centrally-funded rural development projects. But despite a change in government in the State, little seems to have changed on that front ultimately leading to a somewhat hurried shunting out of a Minister from his Department. The decision taken by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to...