-The Week Vagaries of the weather are not the only reason for Marathwada's agrarian crisis Three widows, two daughters and an overwhelming sense of grief occupy the house of the Palwes in Kekat Jalgaon in Paithan, Aurangabad. The house lost all its men there were three in the past three years. The Palwe widows, Yashoda, Chandrabhaga and Lakshmibai, and Yashoda's two daughters, Suman, 8, and Sarita, 6, live in a hut without...

-The Hindu The State’s recent experience shows that even the worst-governed States can reform their public distribution system and make good use of the National Food Security Act. “In Lalu’s days we had a lal card [BPL card], with Nitish we got coupons, and when Manjhi came we got this new ration card”. This is how Anuj Paswan, a Dalit resident of Tetar village in Gaya district, sees recent changes in Bihar’s...

-The Indian Express Mumbai: Despite MGNREGA’s rich possibilities, Kumar notes that the Maharashtra government has slashed allocations under it to Rs 800 crore in 2014-15. Even as it stares at unprecedented crop loss from back-to-back droughts followed by untimely rains/hailstorms, Maharashtra has seemingly given the short shrift to MGNREGA, which could have gone some way in mitigating the current crisis. And significantly, its potential has been least leveraged in Vidarbha, the region...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government has floated a draft proposal to create a national database for people with disabilities. The proposal seeks to link the unique disability identification card - a smart card for all people with disabilities - to a central database to "ensure homogeneity and uniformity and streamlining the tracking of physical and financial progress of benefit delivery at all levels". The ministry had in October last year floated the...

-The Telegraph Bangalore: Six years ago, a 16-year-old Revanna M had missed a chance to travel to France for football training because, as an orphan, he didn't have the documents to obtain a passport. Memories of that heartbreak returned to haunt him last summer when he was chosen by an NGO as one of six underprivileged youths to visit Brazil during the football World Cup. Again, a passport seemed elusive for Revanna,...