-Frontline Odisha shows the way in the implementation of the ICDS scheme to ensure that children receive nutrition and care in their earliest years, but the Centre’s moves to slash budgetary allocations could wreak havoc on such programmes. At the Tasarda anganwadi centre in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, as the auxiliary nurse and midwife (ANM) pulled out the blood pressure (BP) instrument to check a pregnant woman, the children at the anganwadi began...

There is a class angle to farmers' suicide in India. Close to three-quarter of farmers who committed suicide in 2014 were small and marginal farmers. ‘Bankruptcy or indebtedness’ accounted for one-fifth of total farmers’ suicide during 2014. The report entitled Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2014 by the National Crime Records Bureau of Ministry of Home Affairs clarifies the doubt that indebtedness and bankruptcy were major causes of farmers' suicide,...

-The Indian Express Farmers say CM promised Rs 2,500 per tonne, but factories paying only Rs 700; govt orders probe. Bengaluru: On June 24, Ningegowda, 61, a differently abled sugarcane farmer from Mandya in south Karnataka, turned the standing sugarcane crop in his 18 gunta field (1 acre = 40 guntas) into his funeral pyre. Till then, only one other farmer’s suicide had been reported from the region since April this...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India is often dubbed as the hub of human trafficking in Asia, especially those of children and young women for slavery and prostitution. Now for the first time, the government is bringing together all states, enforcement and intelligence agencies, paramilitary forces engaged in border areas in the eastern region, NGOs and other stakeholders to discuss a solution to end the menace. Over 600 officers from Centre/states...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a move to put the rights of women in live-in relationships and single independent daughters on a legally firmer footing, an expert committee set up the Centre has recommended an amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to ensure their rightful claim to maintenance. The report is expected to be discussed at an inter-ministerial meeting on Monday. The Pam Rajput Committee report, recently submitted to...