-ANI Food Minister K.V. Thomas on Wednesday said that the proposed National Food Security Bill marks a paradigm shift in addressing the problem of food security - from it being viewed as a welfare approach to a right-based approach. Launching the bulletin on food justice in India brought out by the Oxfam India, the institute of development studies and the centre for legislative research and advocacy here, Thomas said: "The Act seeks...

ASHAs will continue to bear the burden of the government's rural health mission as a new order lists more incentive-based services. On May 31, a Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare order listed additional incentivised duties for accredited social health activists, or ASHAs, but was silent on the issue of regularisation of their employment. ASHAs, who bridge the gap between the rural population and the nearest health care outlets under...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is often in the news for wrong reasons. But when he says that India’s major problems are Naxalism and malnutrition, we need to sit up and listen. It was on January 10, 2012, that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called hunger and malnutrition a national shame while releasing the Naandi Foundation’s Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) Survey Report 2011. It was a high-profile occasion, given that the multi-party...

-The Shillong Times KLEW: A serious irregularity has been unearthed over the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme in the Unitarian Lower Primary School in Upper Klew village in Ri-Bhoi district. Students of the school are not getting their mid-day meal even though official records claim that mid-day meals are being provided to the students on a regular basis. The matter came to light after students of the school confirmed that they were...