-The Telegraph Chennai: If the way into voters’ hearts is through their stomachs, Jayalalithaa appears to have come up with the right recipe. A chain of low-cost canteens, opened recently in Chennai as a “brainchild” of the Tamil Nadu chief minister, has whetted appetites at a time of rising food prices. Idlis at Re 1 each, sambar-rice at Rs 5 and curd-rice at Rs 3 — the Chennai Municipal Corporation-run canteens that offer...

By selectively borrowing habits from the West, the urban Indian has worsened his chances with cancer. Doctors say that while the city-bred Indian has willingly adopted a western diet, lapping up high-fat foods and shunning high-fibre content, he or she hasn't picked up the healthy western attitude of detecting and treating cancer early.  The end-result, as the India's Million Death Study (MDS) reported on Thursday shows, is that urban Indians are...

The Centre has decided to include the Scheduled Tribes as a category that will, by law, be provided subsidised food grains through the public distribution system under the proposed National Food Security Bill. The final draft also provides for supply of “ready cooked hot breakfast” to eligible school children in addition to the mid-day meals under the Integrated Child Development Scheme. Highly placed sources told The Hindu that that the Union...

-The Hindustan Times   Do these people look well-off to you? The planning commission puts them above poverty line. Basant Kumar, 51  Shopkeeper  Kusumpur Pahari slum,  Vasant Vihar, Delhi Daily expense: Rs 53   Basant Kumar runs a little shop in a slum in Vasant Vihar, home to over two lakh migrant families. He feeds and clothes his wife and three children on his meagre earnings of Rs5,000 a month. He also works odd-jobs, in construction or with...

-The Times of India   The Gujarat high court (HC) on Thursday asked the state government to specify what steps it has taken to implement the schemes that are introduced to make the public distribution system (PDS) effective. This status report is in connection with an order passed last year. In 2010, the HC had asked the state government to implement various schemes like Antyodaya Anna Yojana, Targeted Public Distribution System, Annapurna Scheme,...