-The Hindu India must convert its young population to a competitive advantage, and nutrition and health are foundational to that outcome. The “Global Nutrition Report 2016” once again demonstrates India’s slow overall progress in addressing chronic malnutrition, manifest in stunting (low weight for age), wasting (low weight for height), micronutrient deficiencies and over-weight. Our track record in reducing the proportion of undernourished children over the past decade has been modest at best,...

-The Hindu Most Dalits are not allowed entry into temples in villages; common crematoriums too are out of bounds to them, says activist. Ahmedabad: For the last three days, Gujarat’s Dalit community has been seething with anger over the public flogging of a group of Dalits who were skinning a dead cow in Mota Samadhiyala, a village near Una town in Saurashtra region on July 11. Four of them were brutally beaten with...

-The Times of India Lucknow: A tribal woman in Uttar Pradesh's parched Bundelkhand has dug a well almost single-handedly for 40 families after her upper Caste neighbours denied them access to a hand-pump. "We are tribals and lived in Duddhi village. But we were not allowed to use the hand-pump by the upper Caste residents. Arranging for a pot of drinking water was an everyday battle we had to face for the...

-The Hindu Business Line The National e-Governance Plan can ensure that higher devolution of funds translates into improved outcomes Cutting edge technology is, no doubt, empowering. The right application of technology can boost productivity in all sectors of the economy: agriculture, manufacturing, services, business and governmental activities. Technology enables informed decision-making, stakeholder participation and efficient service delivery and can help ensure transparency, accountability, and rule of law leading to inclusive good governance....

-Livemint.com The state government, heavily influenced by the private school lobby, had twisted the law’s rules so much that very few eligible children could jump through its hoops Rohith Vemula’s case brought to the fore the depth of Caste and class prejudices institutionally embedded in India’s education system. Babasaheb Ambedkar described these as, “an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite units, each one prevented from fusing into...