An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...

My attention was drawn to “An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of West Bengal” which was signed by thirty members of the civil society of Kolkata and Delhi. What disturbed me was the tone and tenor of the language used in the letter in denouncing Ms Mamata Banerjee’s bold initiative in inviting the Maoists of Junglemahal for a dialogue after “ceasefire”. May I ask with all humility who among the...

The government's ambitious Socio-economic and Caste Census 2011, the bedrock for many social schemes, is facing a human resource crisis that is likely to delay not only the survey, but also many big-ticket electoral promises of the UPA government, such as the National Food Security Bill. To salvage the situation, the rural development ministry, which is executing the census through state governments, recently approached the Registrar General of India (RGI) for...

The Congress rules state and the centre, but money set aside for Rajasthan’s malnourished tribal children does not reach dysfunctional crèches and other urgent needs Three-year-old Bagmati Sahariya lies listlessly on a string cot inside an unlit mud-and-thatched home in Baran district’s Amrod village, 292km south of Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. When her father Janki Lal (36), a daily wage labourer, lifts her on his shoulder, her bony hands and legs dangle...

As the Right to Information Act (RTI) celebrated the sixth year of its coming, there has been much heated discussion, often emotional, of the benefits that it has brought and also the challenges with which it has confronted government. This debate came to a head with the prime minister’s inaugural address to the Annual Convention of the Central Information Commission on October 14. It is accepted in all circles that the...