-Frontline The Central government's proposal to hand over the supply of supplementary nutrition to NGOs in the name of "community participation" is surely an invitation for private profiteering on the back of this supposedly public scheme. ENSURING safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the...

-The Indian Express Kanpur: Vijai Kumari got bail in 1994. But it took two decades for her to leave Lucknow women's jail, as son Kanhaiya, born in prison, raised money for a lawyer and a bond Vijai Kumari named her son Kanhaiya, after Lord Krishna. It was on the suggestion of a doctor-like in the mythology about the Hindu god, he was born in jail. For the next two decades, as...

-The Economic Times The revised, but not yet passed, National Food Security Bill (NFSB) represents a crucial political-economic approach to welfare. But how well do we understand the financial and, more importantly, distributional consequences of the revised Bill? Although the revised Bill is likely to simplify the identification of beneficiaries, financial implications will still be substantial. Calculating these implications must include not only the cost of food subsidy, but also additional costs...

-The Hindu   ‘No steps taken to prevent such deaths in Attappady Hills' Palakkad: One more infant died at Kottathara Tribal Speciality Hospital on Thursday, taking the number of deaths owing to malnutrition in the last 16 months in the Attappady Hills in Palakkad district of Kerala to 35. The infant, weighing only 1,300 grams, was delivered during the eighth month of pregnancy. The mother was admitted in the hospital three days back...

-The Hindu   A concern about the Food Security Bill is that legal entitlement has been weakened to mean a passive right to receive whatever the state gives The hallmark of the National Food Security Bill 2011 is that if implemented it will translate into India's first ever right to food legislation, guaranteeing food as a justiciable, legal entitlement to its people. However, in its current form, the Bill fails to evolve a...