-The Hindu     The Kerala government has not learnt anything from the Attappady tragedy. Nutrition levels of women and children, most of them tribals, continue to remain dismal in the area At the Agali Community Health Centre in Attappady, Palakkad district, Kerala, Kavitha tends to her four-year-old child lying listlessly on the cot, critically ill. The doctor says the child is severely malnourished. He also says there are eight such infants and children,...

-IANS Those who cherish India's constitutional values will find Gujarat Chief Minister Narenda Modi's boast to build a state of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (India's first home minister and deputy prime minister) taller than the Statue of Liberty rather chilling. By prizing nationalism over individual freedom, Modi may have once again revealed his illiberal nature. People who dislike this aspect of him, Leftists mainly, give vent to their disapproval by dismissing Modi's development...

-The Business Standard Not so efficiently or transparently but there is progress and hope, besides showcasing likely problems with the Centre's own law Mahasamund (Chhattisgarh): The UPA government at the Centre has been mulling hard on ways to enact its Food Security Bill, even as the Chhattisgarh government has completed six months of enacting a like law, one providing 35 kg of rice a month at Rs 2 a kg to all...

-The Hindu     In spite of the rosy picture painted by the World Bank, the prospect of eliminating extreme poverty remains distant In a protracted period of gloom and persistent recession with feeble signs of recovery in a large part of the developed world, the World Bank, Brookings Institution and others can be forgiven for their euphoria over the accomplishment of a key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) - of halving extreme poverty in...

-The Hindu     While the legitimacy of political parties depends on their acceptance of financial transparency under the RTI Act, their internal decision-making processes should be left alone The Central Information Commission (CIC) decision declaring political parties as public authorities under the Right to Information Act has again pit the political class against the people. Political parties have increasingly lost legitimacy due to opaque financing, cultivation of individuals with a criminal background, subversion of...