They have all been killed quietly, leaving Devda just with 20 girls compared to 300 boys Avon Kanwar lives in fear. She is scared her food may be poisoned. She is afraid to sleep at night because she suspects she may be strangled. Avon, eight years old, is convinced her parents will kill her. “I don’t know where she hears such things,”says her father Sangh Singh, “We stopped killing girls...

The government may be facing an unprecedented barrage of corruption charges and an embarrassing Lokpal bill stir, but India Corruption Study, 2010, reveals that there is a marked decline in the percentage of people who feel graft has increased since 2005. Centre for Media Studies has conducted the survey. Rural population across 12 states — three of them Congress-ruled — was surveyed. The foreword has been written by NAC member Aruna...

Government undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor households. As a consequence, the BPL survey that was to...

India's Supreme Court has told states to "ruthlessly stamp out" the so-called honour killings. The court also warned that senior officials who failed to act against the offenders would be prosecuted. In recent times, there have been many cases where people have been ostracised or killed for defying age-old notions of tradition and family honour. Often these crimes are endorsed, or even encouraged, by village-based caste councils. Many of the victims are young couples...

It is not often that a social security programme the size of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS - New Delhi has spent Rs 40,000 crore on it in 2010/11 alone - faces an existential moment. But, April 2011 will present one such crossroad: the end of the term of a bureaucrat widely acknowledged as the prime mover behind the five-year old scheme. Brought in six years ago to the Centre from her parent...