-The New Indian Express The poor labourers deposit their ration cards as guarantee for borrowing money to bear treatment expenditure or conduct weddings. KOLKATA: Almost an entire village in Purulia district is starving as ration cards of around 50 families of tribal daily wagers are mortgaged with the local money lenders. The beneficiaries are now being deprived of the free food grains through public distribution system (PDS) as announced by Bengal chief...

-The Indian Express For eight years, Kantabai Jadhav was among 14 tribal men and women, and eight children, who lived as bonded labourers working on farms, a cowshed and a rice mill just 120 km from Mumbai in Dhamane village of Pune’s Maval taluka. Ahmednagar, Pune: “They would call us dogs, and other bad words for women… There was no cooking oil, nor any vegetables, ever. There was dried fish and foodgrain...

-VillageSquare.in Overcoming taboos and becoming more knowledgeable about abundant local foods, malnourished Kondh people in Odisha are bringing diversity to their food baskets through backyard kitchen gardens Kandhamal/ Kahalandi, Odisha: “Unless we consume a variety of foods that include vegetables and greens, pulses and legumes, and meat and fish along with rice, where will we get adequate nutrition? How can our children have proper physical and cognitive growth?” asked Golapi Kanhar. The question...

-IndiaSpend.com Garhwa district, Jharkhand: Bhagiya Birjia is in a fix. Each month, the 42-year-old farm labourer gets 35 kg food grains under Antyodaya Anna Yojana--a scheme meant to provide food security for the poorest Indians--on account of being a member of the Birjia tribe, designated a ‘Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group’ (PVTG). But she is forced to share the grains with seven members of her brother’s family, who live a short walk away...

-The New Indian Express Odisha Millet Mission is a unique initiative for revival and promotion of millet production. BHUBANESWAR: With focus shifting to nutrition in food and nutrient-rich millets becoming a favourite food to fight malnutrition, agricultural experts and officials lauded the Millet Mission undertaken by the State Government to promote production, consumption and marketing of the grains. Inaugurating a national workshop on nutri-cereals here on Wednesday, Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy said Odisha...