-The Hindu From the outside, it is just one of those private schools tucked away in an obscure corner that holds out the promise of convent-education, but once you are inside the poorly-lit building -- known as House No.16 -- in South-West Delhi's Bijwasan, you are confronted by the presence of countless buzzing flies and a pervading nauseating stench. This school with cramped classrooms and no students is home to grown...

-The Hindu Hyderabad: The Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) sub-plans, for whose implementation the Government adopted a legislation recently, have finally been named "Indiramma Kalalu (dreams). The implementation of these plans is being launched formally by Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy in West Godavari and Khammam districts on Friday, marking the celebrations of 106th jayanti of late Jagjivan Ram. The Government is taking pride that AP has emerged as the...

-The Hindu Natpurwa is a village where women have been forced into prostitution for centuries. And one of them is determined to help the others break free. Round faced, stout and dusky, Chandralekha, at age 15, was the most desired girl among the politicians, policemen and senior members of Eastern Uttar Pradesh’s civil society. “They always wanted plump women,” says Chandralekha, now 51 years old. Chandralekha was pushed into prostitution, by her...

-The Hindu Despite government programmes, nutrition supplements for women and children are not to be found in Jharkhand’s villages More than two years after she gave birth to her youngest daughter, Shanti Oraon, an adivasi farmer in Bhandara village, Khunti district has been unable to resume working in the fields. “She has breathing trouble, and could not start walking even after she turned two and a half years old. I must stay...

-The Times of India It is budget time once again. Far away from the talk of lakhs and crores of rupees echoing from Parliament to television studios, a thin adivasi teenage girl stands in a queue at her hostel, her plate in her hand, waiting for her share of the gruel that she is given for lunch every day. Her family depends on the money from the minor forest produce her...