-Down to Earth Blog The performance of nutrition indicators amongst Dalits is improving, it is nowhere near the catch-up pace Does a new government and a strong Prime Minister claiming to hail from the backward caste augur Achche Din for Dalits too? We hope so! But political commitment-or lack of it-has multiple manifestations. In a deeply stratified society like India with entrenched elitism, people from the Scheduled Caste (referred to as Dalits...
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UPA’s Aadhaar, DBT schemes get boost from PM Modi -Ruhi Tewari
-The Indian Express Modi on July 5 made clear his intention to retain and push the schemes. In a decisive push to the UPA government's Aadhaar project and Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, his office has directed the Planning Commission to collect data on these schemes in 300 priority districts and submit a status report by August 15. According to government sources, the directive was issued...
More »Killing MGNREGA slowly -Raghav Gaiha and Shylashri Shankar
-The Indian Express Focusing on private asset creation will only exacerbate its design and implementation failures. In his budget speech, Arun Jaitley shied away from taking a tough stand on the MGNREGA. In a seemingly non-controversial comment, he emphasised that "wage employment would be provided under MGNREGA through works that are more productive, asset creating and substantively linked to agriculture and allied activities". The subtext, however, is controversial. As argued below, far...
More »GEAC clears field trials for GM crops -Meena Menon
-The Hindu The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) on Friday gave the green signal for field trials of genetically modified (GM) rice, mustard, cotton, chickpea and brinjal at its meeting in Delhi. Hem Kumar pande, chairperson of the GEAC told The Hindu that meetings were not held for a year since March 2013 and there was a backlog of 70 applications pending since 2011-12 of which 60 have been cleared so far. Friday's...
More »On 1st anniversary of Bihar midday meal tragedy, new report warns of future mishaps -Manash Pratim Gohain
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: On the eve of the first year anniversary of the Midday Meal (MDM) tragedy in Bihar's Saran district, a new report released by India for Safe Food (IFSF) has found that that government is not acting decisively against pesticides to prevent such cases in the future. On July 16, 2013 23 children died in Saran district school due to pesticide poisoning after consuming tainted food cooked...
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