-The Hindustan Times The government has chosen the Ordinance route to put into force several legislative Bills over the past months. Many of these are expected to be tabled in Parliament in the upcoming budget session. HT explains four of them. What is an ordinance? As per Article 123 of the Constitution, when Parliament is not in session, the President has the power to promulgate an Ordinance - which has the same force...

-Economic and Political Weekly This paper, based on an empirical study in Chhattisgarh and Gujarat, attempts to examine the land and livelihood facets of forest dependent people following the claims made by them under the Forest Rights Act. It also touches upon factors influencing livelihoods such as source of irrigation, crop yield, forest produce collection, and livestock holdings to examine the respondents' socio-economic conditions. The findings revealed that the land received...

-TheHansIndia.com Poya Devi, 22, is happy that the weight of her child has been steadily increasing. Her infant has received immunisation and, since last June, Poya has been availing services of the Indiramma Amurutha Hastham (IAH) scheme in her village of Urumulu, which lies 30 kilometres away from Araku. Poya was registered at the village's anganwadi as soon as she got pregnant and was later sent to a hospital for institutional delivery...

-The Indian Express Having decontrolled petrol and diesel, the government's next focus is on containing fertiliser subsidies. Key to this is decontrol of urea and ushering in a system of crediting subsidy payments directly into the bank accounts of farmers. HARISH DAMODARAN explains the existing subsidy regime and the road ahead. * What's so special about urea decontrol? Urea is the only fertiliser whose maximum retail price (MRP) is still fixed...

-Down to Earth Shanta Kumar committee report recommends privatisation, outsourcing and cash benefit transfer to cut food procurement and distribution costs The high level committee set up to look into the restructuring of Food Corporation of India has recommended reducing the number of beneficiaries under the Food Security Act-from the current 67 per cent to 40 per cent. It has also recommended allowing private players to procure and store food grains, stopping...