The hunger and malnutrition situation in the country has shown marginal improvement, according to the HUNGaMA report. ONE area that has always bothered policymakers in a growth-obsessed economy is the state of the social sector, in particular figures indicating the numbers of people going hungry or are homeless and children who are out of school, the poor nutritional status of women and children, and the high infant and maternal mortality rates....

Poor workers are being paid wages as low as Rs 1-10 for a hard day's labour in states like Rajasthan and Karnataka under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which promises a real wage of Rs 100 per day.  Documents with TOI show that many desperate, poor labourers across the country are being cheated of their hard earned money and the much publicized guaranteed daily wage of Rs 100...

Campaigners have hailed Meredith Alexander's decision to quit the London Olympics' ethics watchdog over Dow Chemicals' sponsorship of the Games as “bold” and “principled.” “By speaking the truth so boldly Meredith has nailed Dow Chemical's lies that the London Olympic Committee and its Chairman Lord Coe believed and propagated till recently. We hope this will make the organisers dump Dow Chemical as a sponsor of the London Games,” said Rashida Bee,...

-IBN Manipur will on Saturday elect a new 60-member assembly to mark the start of make-or-break elections in five states. The staggered exercise, which ends with the vote in Goa and Uttar Pradesh on March 3, will be this year's first major test for political parties. Along with Uttarakhand and Punjab, a grand total of 137 million voters will be eligible to exercise their franchise in the five states. Earlier, campaigning for...

-CNN-IBN   Contrary to the dominant narrative that areas where Naxalites are strong are where the state has been absent, for the last 100-150 years, there has been a gradual expansion of the state in tribal areas regardless of whether the people want it or not. However, the state has been expanding in the wrong areas. You have an extension of the forest department, the bureaucracy, the patwari and the forest guard....