-The Hindu   The NDA's first budget has thrown a few sops in the direction of the environment and the millions dependent on it. But much like its predecessors, in painting the big picture it remains embarrassingly devoid of innovative ideas on how to move India towards ecological sustainability and justice "While 2015 will be a landmark year for sustainable development and climate change policy, 2014 is the last chance for all stakeholders...

-The Statesman   Koraput (Odisha): In order to foster greater food security among the community, pressure groups have been formed at village, gram panchayat and block level in Kundra block of Koraput district. The group will be supported by well-known NGO, CYSD. "The main role of the pressure groups is to strengthen the advocacy process and facilitate better access to the Public Distribution System (PDS).These groups conduct meeting and interaction regularly to discuss...

-The Hindu We need a National Authority on Hunger Elimination, with adequate funds and exclusive powers, administrative and financial Of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations, the first relates to eradicating poverty and extreme hunger, halving hunger by 2015. But most of the countries, including India, have not achieved tangible results on this front. With 2015 around the corner, the new government has a major task of addressing...

-Economic and Political Weekly India faces an exponential growth in the proportion of its elderly in the near future, but there is no specific policy of substance to deal with the many ramifications of this development. What little exists hardly does justice to the country's elderly Poor, who are forced to contend with daunting challenges late in life when they have few resources and are partially or entirely dependent on others....

-Down to Earth Blog The performance of nutrition indicators amongst Dalits is improving, it is nowhere near the catch-up pace Does a new government and a strong Prime Minister claiming to hail from the backward caste augur Achche Din for Dalits too? We hope so! But political commitment-or lack of it-has multiple manifestations. In a deeply stratified society like India with entrenched elitism, people from the Scheduled Caste (referred to as Dalits...