-The Telegraph At present, India has 195 million households with ration cards (nearly 794 million people), lower than the beneficiaries we intended to target in 2013 Inordinate delays in carrying out the census exercise are depriving millions of Indians who rely on rations for their subsistence. The exclusion of the poorest from the public distribution system in the pre and post-pandemic years was first flagged by the economists, Jean Drèze and Reetika...

-The Hindu Near-universal social security pensions would be a good start to a radical expansion of public support for the elderly Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since Independence — from around 32 years in the late 1940s to 70 years or so today. Many countries have done even better, but this is still a historical achievement. Over the same period, the fertility rate has crashed from about six children...

-The Telegraph Aquaculture is yet to see the kind of technological change that the agriculture sector underwent during the Green Revolution Fisheries is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world that plays an important role in economic development as well as in facilitating nutrition security. Animal protein is a primary source of protein for billions of people and aquaculture provides for the livelihood of more than 10% of the global population....

-The Hindu Number of people in custody or still detained at the end of the year highest since 2017 Preventive detentions in 2021 saw a rise of over 23.7% compared to the year before, with over 1.1 lakh people being placed under preventive detention, according to the latest crime statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau last month. Of these, 483 were detentions under the National Security Act, of which almost half...

-The Telegraph Seventy-five years of planned development have not helped in the betterment of the adivasi community Adivasis living in Central India make up one of the most marginalised sections in the country. But they live in the most resource-rich areas that attract industrialists and the State. Although scheduled tribes constitute 8.6% of the total population, they make up 50% of the people who have been displaced or dispossessed from their land...