11 children go missing every hour in India. This and other disturbing statistics cry out for urgent action Every hour, 11 children go missing in the country. Four of these remain untraced, concludes a nation-wide research on missing children. During 2008-10, close to 1,17,480 children were reported missing in 392 districts. Of them, 74,209 children were traced while 41, 546 remain untraced. The information has been collated by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA)...

-The Indian Express Jairam Ramesh’s criticism of NREGA highlights that a rights-based approach to poverty reduction cannot work without improving implementation The clamour for the right to social pensions is another attempt to deal with the Indian state’s inability to provide adequate social protection to its poorest citizens through targeted programmes. India’s vulnerable continue to be excluded from social safety nets. The multi-layered problems with social welfare schemes can be summarised in...

-The Indian Express Inmates of the Apna Ghar shelter in Rohtak told a four-member committee that visited them today that they were gangraped by Haryana Police officials, who made them dance naked and forcibly took them out of the home. According to sources, two of the inmates — one deaf and mute and the other mentally challenged — said that when they got pregnant, the incharge of the home stepped on their...

-PTI The Australian government might have overturned a ban on uranium sale to India but a majority of people in the country still appear opposed to the idea of selling the mineral to New Delhi. In a new survey, a majority of Australians were found to be against the recent Labor party decision of lifting ban on Uranium sale to India with 61% opposing it. "More than 60% of Australians say they are...

It was due to a civil society struggle that the government only last year removed the bar on outsiders from participating in the social audit of projects executed under its showcase legislation of MGNREGA. Barring Andhra Pradesh, no state has so far implemented this reform. Yet, in its report for the ongoing universal periodic review (UPR) before the UN Human Rights Council, India cited the social audit clause in MGNREGA...