-Live Mint In the past year, ration cards are being replaced with smartcards that can track food doled out through the PDS system New Delhi: Mohanlal Kapoor, a street vendor in north India, holds a card entitling him to subsidized food for his wife and four children. To get supplies, the Kapoors must battle an estimated 15 million families in their state toting similar pieces of paper that they're not entitled...

-Economic and Political Weekly Taking on the argument that malnutrition in India is caused by forces that respond only partially to policy interventions, this article points out that it is important to look at the role of disease conditions - shaped by inadequate water, poor sanitation, and insufficient public health measures - in poor nutrition. Moreover, the relationship between disease and food intake is multiplicative rather than additive, and omission of...

-Outlook New Delhi: Investing in education of girls, especially the most marginalised, is required to make progress on most social indicators in India, according to UNICEF. To mark the second International Day of the Girl Child, UNICEF today organised a meeting with top Urdu editors in the capital. Speaking at the event, Urmila Sarkar, Chief of Education UNICEF, said, "Innovation in girls education will be instrumental to female empowerment and breaking the cycle...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A dedicated woman health worker from rural Bihar has bagged a global UN award for her commitment and dedication in eradicating polio in India. The UN has conferred the 'UN Frontline Workers Global Leadership Award' on Martha Dodray, an Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife (ANM) from Darbhanga district of Bihar. She represented the worldwide polio frontline workers, whose contribution to the cause of global health has been...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: The National NGO Child Rights Coalition (NNCRC), an umbrella organisation of NGOs working for children, has urged the Assam government to protect the rights of children living in prisons or detention camps for illegal immigrants. These children live in prison because that is where their parents live and they have nowhere else to go. The appeal came just days after a four-member team of the NNCRC found seven children, including...