-The Economic Times The Centre may find it difficult to build political consensus on the National Food Security Bill as several non-Congress-ruled states have expressed their opposition to the scheme. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have already expressed their dissent while Chhattisgarh has rolled out its own food security scheme. With more than 40% of the country's population residing in these five states, the Bill may not have the desired...

-Outlook This could be the UPA’s worst cut to its beloved aam admi. Healthcare has virtually been handed over to privateers. Not For Those Who Need It Most Govt seems to have abandoned healthcare to the private sector Diagnosing An Ailing Republic     70 per cent of India still lives in the villages, where only two per cent of qualified allopathic doctors are available     Due to lack of access to medical care, rural India...

-Live Mint Parliamentary committee’s proposals on the food security Bill are an improvement over the original The standing committee of Parliament, set up to examine the National Food Security Bill (NFSB), has finally given its recommendations. With this, the Bill has moved one step closer to seeing daylight. The recommendations, which are not binding on the government, will now be considered by the Union cabinet before being put to vote in Parliament.   The...

-The Hindu MGNREGA records manipulated; workers’ wages siphoned off from accounts Rankikalan (Jharkhand): At noon on Tuesday last, a dozen men gathered on the banks of the Auranga near Rankikalan village in Latehar district. As they performed the dashmirites, the wailing from the huts in the village continued. Bhuiatoli village had lost 23 men, women and children when the truck in which they were returning to the village after working on landlords’...

-The Hindu One of the most prominent features of India’s middle-class-driven public culture has been an obsession about our GDP growth rate, and a facile equation of that number with a sense of national achievement or impending arrival into affluence. In media headlines, political speeches, and everyday conversations, the GDP growth rate number — whether it is five per cent or eight per cent or whatever — has become a staple...