-The Times of India I grew up in Patna but the place where I learned to ride a bicycle was Chaibasa. My seventh birthday passed unnoticed because my maternal grandmother had died the previous week, but my parents relented and bought me the promised bicycle. Yesterday, I went back to Chaibasa after more than 40 years. My father was a civil servant who had served for many years in what is now...

-Outlook Social indices topper Kerala just can't stop the baby deaths in its malnutrition-hit tribal Attapady belt Under the thick canopy of a peepal tree, beside the road that winds to Pallur Ooru in Attapady in the Western Ghats, is a small tribal burial ground. There are no tombstones to mark the graves and on closer look one sees tiny mounds where the mud has been disturbed. In a quiet corner,...

-The Hindu   A concern about the Food Security Bill is that legal entitlement has been weakened to mean a passive right to receive whatever the state gives The hallmark of the National Food Security Bill 2011 is that if implemented it will translate into India's first ever right to food legislation, guaranteeing food as a justiciable, legal entitlement to its people. However, in its current form, the Bill fails to evolve a...

-The Indian Express Can pornography be given free play when the state remains an integral expression of male power? There are many things we need to know that we wish we did not have to. The existence of domestic violence against women and children is one of them. The use of pornography as a tool for learning and justifying such brutal behaviour, is another. We have lived in denial of links between...

-Rediff.com   Born in Mumbai's infamous red-light district, Shweta Katti has won a scholarship to the Bard College, New York. This is her story. Shweta Katti is warming up to the media attention she's been receiving lately. She has had a long day but has agreed to meet me at a coffee shop for what must have been the nth interview she's giving in the last 48 hours. It is close to 10 in...