When Jhintu Bariah, his wife Bimla and their three children died one after the other over a span of four weeks five months ago in Bolangir, the district administration had sanctioned an ex-gratia of Rs 10,000 for the family and dumped 25kg of rice at his house in Chhabripalli village, about 50km from Kantabanji town. Five months after it, Orissa High Court has decided to consider a probe to ascertain whether...
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In defence of PDS
The central vigilance committee led by retired Justice D. P. Wadhwa, which was established by the Supreme Court of India to monitor its orders in the PIL on the right to food, has come out with a strong indictment of the public distribution system (PDS). Based on State-level Reports for Delhi, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Karnataka, the committee has identified widespread corruption at different levels of the...
More »Entire PDS has collapsed, says SC panel by Dhananjay Mahapatra
The sale of foodgrains through the public distribution system to poor families throughout the country at highly subsidised prices is stinking of corruption, hoarding and black marketing, the Supreme Court appointed central vigilance committee said in its damning Reports. After touring various states and scrutinising the operation of PDS system through fair price shops, the committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice D P Wadhwa used following terminology for...
More »Guaranteeing unemployment
It is true that, at 119 crore person-days, the employment created this year by the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), the government’s flagship programme, is tiny, a fraction of one percentage point of the total employment in the country. But a more meaningful way of looking at its potential impact, however, is to see that around half the country’s workforce has registered for a job under it...
More »Where are the missing children? by Mahim Pratap Singh
The Sample Registration Survey (SRS)-2008 puts the Infant Mortality Rate in Madhya Pradesh at 70/1000 live births. The total number of births in the State for 2008-09 according to the State Department of Public Health and Family Welfare was 17,51,243. According to the IMR of 70/1000 live birth, the absolute figure for total infant deaths for 2008-09 would stand at 122,587. In his written reply to Congress MLA Mahendra Singh...
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