Wazirpur, the North Delhi village that recently witnessed three suspected honour killings, is only a stone’s throw away from a big, flashy glass-and-steel mall in the middle-class neighbourhood of Ashok Vihar. But, given the extreme brutality of the recent case, it may as well be a million miles away. Like most urban villages in the Capital, Wazirpur’s economy was at one point completely dependent on agriculture. In 1950, as the...

Conflicting recollections on Bhopal tragedy highlight need to make old government papers public I was on the last unaffected train out of Bhopal that night, or so I was told. It was the Dakshni Express from Hyderabad to Delhi. There was nothing unusual at the station and next day in Delhi, I went through an entire working day unaware of that night’s news. It was not the age of 24x7 television...

The draft law on sexual harassment could make the workplace safer for women. Locker room talk, personal remarks and unsolicited advances will all get the official stamp of disapproval if the draft bill on sexual harassment is passed by the Cabinet next month. This comes 13 years after the Supreme Court framed the Vishaka guidelines on sexual harassment at the workplace. The draft bill based on these guidelines has been around...

In recent years, Chhattisgarh police has been under a cloud for human rights violations in the conflict zone of Bastar. So far, the allegations have not been proved in a court of law, making it virtually impossible for victims to claim compensation. But on Friday, for the first time, the High Court of Chhattisgarh directed the state government to compensate the widows of three men allegedly killed by the police....

A pilot survey will be launched next month to assess the number of the poor in the country on a new set of parameters ahead of the scheduled BPL census in April 2011. The government has decided to launch the pilot project in 260 villages across the country to test the parameters suggested by a former Planning Commission member amid a debate on the best way of doing such counts. The project,...