-The Hindu A unique cell phone-based networking system in Chhattisgarh helps Adivasi Gonds share local news and air grievances. Deep in the jungles of Chhattisgarh, a straightforward, earthy man named Naresh Bunkar, field co-ordinator of the Adivasi Santha Manch, picks up his mobile phone and dials +918050068000, a long-distance number in Bangalore. He immediately cuts off and waits. Within seconds, he gets a call from the dialled number, and he hears a...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Against the backdrop of increasing violence against women and children across the country, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development had launched the ‘Ahimsa Messenger' Programme in last August to address the critical issue at the grass roots level through creating numerous Ahimsa Messengers. The messengers would be generating awareness on basic legal rights, procedures and provisions amongst women and children; they would also serve as link...

-The Hindu Nearly one out of four men in a United Nations study of 10,000 men in Asia admitted to having committed a rape, a report released on Tuesday shows. Marital rape was by far the most common type of rape, followed by the rape of an intimate partner. Sexual entitlement - the "belief that men were entitled to sex regardless of consent" - was the top reason men gave for committing...

-The Hindu Since June, at least 60 senior citizens have been abandoned on the streets Chennai: Nagarunissa, who is in her 70s, has been living on the pavement along Sydenhams Road in Periamet for several years. She depends on local residents for food, and with folded hands, thanks passers-by who give her money. "My son lives in Bangalore, but I have been here for the past 20 years. I sit here all day...

-The Business Standard The Uttarakhand floods have put the spotlight on the competence of the national body which was created with a vision 'to build a safer and disaster-resilient India' When thousands got swept away by floods in Uttarakhand on the night of June 16, little help reached the mountains till at least a day had passed. Though the weather department had issued a warning, the magnitude of the disaster shows that...