-PTI A Delhi court today put on trial top Naxal leader Kobad Gandhy for alleged cheating, forgery and impersonation while discharging him on charges under stringent anti-terror law.  Paving the way for the trial, Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Kumar Jain framed charges against 65-year-old Gandhy under various provisions of the IPC relating to cheating, forgery and impersonation in the case in which he is accused of trying to set up a base...

Travelling in rural India always yields rich insights into how poor women struggle to provide that little extra, in terms of food, for the family meal. It was in the village of Vijaypura – in the drought prone Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh – that I came across Bharati, a 39-year-old farm woman and homemaker, working her everyday magic by laying out slices of potato and whole green chillies on the...

India's HIV control programme could soon get merged with the country's flagship National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), if the Planning Commission has its way. The Commission's steering committee on health for the 12th five-year Plan has proposed "incorporating AIDS control, universal healthcare and universal access to essential medicines" into NRHM. Planning Commission member in-charge of health Syeda Hameed said, "It is a serious recommendation to incorporate NACO under an overall National Health...

The ongoing debate over the incidence of poverty in India, often assuming surreal proportions, shows that there is indeed a ‘philosophy of poverty’ guiding current economic reforms. The loot of our country’s resources that is taking place both through these reforms, which continue to widen gross inequalities, and through the open plunder of our resources for private gain — as reflected in the series of mega scams — require the legitimacy...

The Budget provides proof of the United Progressive Alliance government having forgotten the importance of its own “flagship schemes”. BUDGET 2012-13 provides conclusive proof that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has lost its way. It has managed the remarkable feat of upsetting almost everyone and making no one happy. The Budget is highly regressive in both taxation and spending terms and will raise prices of essentials, so aam aurat and...