What was our immediate response to further decline in the child sex ratio in India? Within days of the provisional 2011 Census results (March-April 2011), the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reconstituted the Central Supervisory Board for the Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex selection) Act 1994 , which had not met for 3 years, and on November 30, 2011 the Ministry of Women and Child Development...

-The Deccan Herald   The Kerala High Court in Kochi on Friday observed that frequent hikes in the prices of petroleum implemented by oil companies in the country amount to slow poisoning of the public. The court expressed its sympathy for the plight of the common man. The common man is at the mercy of oil companies, observed a division bench headed by acting chief justice of Kerala High Court C N Ramachandran...

It has been a long and difficult road to justice for the tribal residents of this village in Tamil Nadu's Dharmapuri district The injustice done to the tribal people of India is a shameful chapter in our country's history. The tribals were called ‘rakshas' (demons), ‘asuras', and what not. They were slaughtered in large numbers, and the survivors and their descendants were degraded, humiliated, and all kinds of atrocities inflicted on...

Mihir Shah, member of the Planning Commission and chairman of the committee to redraft rules and guidelines of NREGA, tells Sreelatha Menon that the Act may also cover farm labourers. The consortium of NGOs that recommended changes in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was founded by you, but your suggestions have been criticised. You seem to consider it a lack of demand rather than a supply problem. First, you should...

The well being dug under the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme at a cost of Rs 2.63 lakh at Gutjera village in Khunti district could not withstand the first spell of monsoon rain. On July 18, its walls collapsed, and so did the dreams of Shravan Mahato of reaping “three crops a year”. His isn’t the only well to have collapsed under the first brush of monsoon. Government estimates...