Two stories on two days, both from Delhi and both shocking in their revelations. Both involved child abuse. The first story was about a university professor on the run, allegedly after it came to light that he had employed a 10-year-old boy in his house, and worse, regularly beat him. The second story was even more mind-numbing in its details. Sanjana (name changed to protect identity), a 14-year-old girl, is...

Absence of preventive measures and affordable and accessible health care leads to nearly 500 encephalitis deaths in Uttar Pradesh. IT is a strange paradox. In a country that aspires to be a superpower and boasts of rapid economic growth, 488 children died in a State, Uttar Pradesh, from encephalitis alone this year. It is nothing less than a national shame and tragedy. In six districts of Bihar, close to 200 children...

The National Food Security Bill, 2011, designed to make access to food a legal right, is the last chance to convert Gandhiji's vision of a hunger-free India into reality. What Mahatma Gandhi said of the role of food in a human being's life in a 1946 speech at Noakhali, now in Bangladesh, remains the most powerful expression of the importance of making access to food a basic human right. Gandhiji also...

Anna Hazare's campaign may lead to a new Lokpal Bill, but it has legitimised middle-class vigilantism and other kinds of civil society mobilisation. NOW that Anna Hazare has declared victory, it is time to take stock of one of the most powerful recent mobilisations of people in India, focussed on influencing policy or lawmaking processes. The victory, however, is largely symbolic. The original demand of the movement, carefully built around Hazare's...

August is usually the preferred month fo­r family holidays in Eu­­rope, because of ab­­undant sunshine and warm weather. In India, normally, this is the south-west monsoon season and a busy period for farmers. This year, ho­wever, several farm families in coastal Andhra Pradesh, the ri­ce bowl of the country, are repo­rted to have declared ‘crop holiday’. This is because the rice mills have not been lifting even last years’ crop....