-The Telegraph New Delhi: Bihar and Jharkhand are the most laggard among states when it comes to implementing midday meals in schools, child services and other social initiatives, reveals a recent study. In all, the study by IIT-Delhi identified Bihar and Jharkhand as the worst performers for five social welfare programmes which also include the public distribution system, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and social security pensions. The study, which covered 10...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The Modi government's squeeze on the UPA's flagship MNREGA scheme is translating into dramatic fund cuts for Maharashtra, which has a BJP government. Compared to the last financial year till December, central funds to the rural job scheme have almost halved, data with the state government reveals. The MNREGA-among the largest job-creation programmes in the world-provides a social safety net for the rural poor. Under the scheme,...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: Vegetables are the noble folk of food world, loved equally by doctors and grandmothers. Vegetarians live off them and meat-eaters are told to live off them. But in Delhi, under every crunchy leaf of radish or the shiny brinjal hide dangerous amounts of pesticides that can slowly kill, shows a new study by JNU. Pritha Chatterjee and Aniruddha Ghosal report how growers, consumers and the authorities may...

-The Indian Express The Ministry of Rural Development seems undecided on whether to blame former Minister Nitin Gadkari or the media for some of the problems with the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). An internal note of the Ministry - prepared ahead of a Performance Review Committee meeting this month - blamed Gadkari for contributing to delays in the payment of wages under the scheme. Soon after...

-Economic and Political Weekly The key to improving the quality of healthcare services in India and reducing costs at the same time can be found by enacting legislation which lays down minimum standards of patient care. In the absence of such standards and the reluctance of health insurance companies to standardise either price or quality, healthcare services continue to be expensive and of doubtful quality. Developing standards of patient care by...