-PTI Chhapra/ Patna: Violent protests erupted in Chhapra in Bihar on Wednesday where 20 children died after consuming mid day meal in their school. According to television reports, people armed with sticks and rods set blaze a bus and damaged public property. Nine more school students died today due to food poisoning after consuming mid-day meal at a government primary school in Bihar's Saran district taking the death toll to 20, official...

-The Times of India PATNA: Eleven children have died and several others have been taken ill after eating infected midday meal at a government school in Saran district. The incident took place in Dharamsati primary school in Masrakh in Saran. According to reports, over 50 children, all in the age group of 8 to 12 years, were taken ill after consuming khichdi, offered to them in midday meal. The children fell ill soon after...

-The Hindu Manoharpur (Jharkhand): Deep inside the Saranda sal forest, Thalkobad lies at the core of what was a CPI (Maoist) "liberated zone" in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum district along the Odisha border. Thalkobad, along with 24 other villages, was reclaimed by the Indian state after a massive military operation - Operation Anaconda-I in August 2011 to destroy the CPI (Maoist) Eastern Regional Bureau and several training camps inside Saranda. The village...

-The Hindu Despite government programmes, nutrition supplements for women and children are not to be found in Jharkhand’s villages More than two years after she gave birth to her youngest daughter, Shanti Oraon, an adivasi farmer in Bhandara village, Khunti district has been unable to resume working in the fields. “She has breathing trouble, and could not start walking even after she turned two and a half years old. I must stay...

-Mainstream Weekly Dr Binayak Sen, an internationally renowned medical practitioner and social activist (a leading figure in the People’s Union for Civil Liberties), was incarcerated in Chhattisgarh and held in detention in Raipur having been branded as a Maoist for his activities in defence of poor tribals in the State. He is now out on bail. The following is the text of the Arvind Narayan Das Memorial Lecture he delivered in...