-The Hindu Rajput women in Bikaner have found empowerment through home-based call centres dispensing tips on organic farming As a young girl, Vijay Laxmi was never allowed to visit her family farm in Bikaner. Rajput women, she was told, stay in purdah, their world restricted to their home and hearth. Even when Laxmi got married to Mahendra Singh of Jhajhar village in the neighbouring Jhunjhunu district, her life did not change much...

-Economic and Political Weekly Before I take issue with some of the points made in the NIPFP response to this comment, it may be useful to recapitulate a few points on which there appears to be agreement: (1) Aadhaar-integration can resolve only certain types of leakages, for which reliable data is unavailable; this was not adequately accounted for in the cost-benefit exercise; (2) the NIPFP study has a fragile basis (in...

-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...

-The Hindu The ground beneath Arundhati Roy’s seismic claims on the Parliament House attack, is shaky — to say the least “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions”, the American politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan — among others — is credited with having said, “but not to his own facts.” Muhammad Afzal Guru’s execution on Saturday morning — a grim spectacle, where the Indian government disgraced itself by denying his family a last meeting,...

-The Hindu The case of the juvenile offender in the Delhi gang rape is a wake-up call for investing more in a protection scheme that will stop children from turning to crime During the 11 years I worked with the emergency helpline service Childline, I have had the opportunity to befriend many children who live on the edge of society. Among them was 11-year-old Arif, who lived with a gang of boys...