-DNA Ordinance promulgated by UPA rules out aid during calamities - natural or man-made. Even as the food security ordinance became part of the statute book after presidential assent on Friday, the Congress and government allayed fears of the law having any effect on the financial management of the country. Armed with figures, Congress chief spokesman Ajay Maken along with food minister KV Thomas explained that the scheme, which entailed merging of...

-The Business Standard Food security should not be treated as a political ploy The government's rush to push through food security legislation as an ordinance, instead of waiting the few weeks till the next Parliament session, is disturbing. There continue to be several major problems with the food security scheme that deserve to be more thoroughly discussed at the highest level of law making than they have been so far. Nobody can...

-The Times of India Robert E Black is the lead author of the Lancet series on Maternal and Child Nutrition as well as professor and chairman at the department of international health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. As the 2013 Lancet series is launched, Black spoke with Rema Nagarajan about its approach to tackling malnutrition, controversies over reach-ing out to commercial food interests - and vital problems causing malnutrition...

-The Hindu "Why this selective concern about encounter killings in Gujarat - these happen all over the country," pleaded Gujarat's lawyer at a Supreme Court hearing of veteran journalist B.G. Verghese's public interest petition on 22 unexplained police killings in that state. When a 13-year-old boy was abducted from a Delhi jhuggi by Gujarat police officials on a whim, the State government's defence was first that the boy was Bangladeshi, next that...

-The Hindustan Times A couple of months ago, I was in South Block for a meeting at the ministry of defence. security norms dictate leaving mobile and electronic devices at the checkpoint. Imagine my horror when I came back an hour later to see one of the guards going through my iPad. This cavalier attitude towards individual privacy is illustrative of an interesting dilemma between the inevitability of a more intrusive...