The central government has decided to make each of its 6,000 websites disabled-friendly. Under new government guidelines, the visually challenged will be able to use a “screen reader software” that will read out the text that appears on a computer monitor. People who have difficulty handling a mouse can use the “voice recognition software” to work the computer with verbal commands. The websites will provide features like “iconic learning” for those...

Why do poor people in rural areas vote when they know the whole system is against them? JEAN DRÈZE talks to some voters and observes the voting process during the recent Assembly elections in Latehar district, Jharkhand, and comes away with some pointers...  At one booth (Rankikalan, Booth No. 69) a BJP activist was trying to influence voters before they entered the booth, under the guise of helping them. Latehar...

The Centre is veering round to accepting the N C Saxena committee’s methodology for identifying below poverty line (BPL) families through a census but may go in for a crucial change — replace ‘‘Muslim’’ with ‘‘Minority’’ for extra weightage on poverty index. The Union rural development ministry is considering minorities as a whole, in place of only Muslims, who are to be given an extra point weightage in BPL identification....

Agriculture, irrigation, primary education discussed ‘State will extend rural development projects further’ West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Thursday held a closed-door meeting with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen at a city hotel. The meeting lasted an hour. Sources said that at the meeting which began late on Thursday evening, the two discussed issues such as agriculture, irrigation, primary education in the State and also the progress of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribe and...

The recent high-pressure tactics to introduce genetically engineered food crops in India are another rude reminder that Western agribusiness companies have a deeprooted strategy to obtain a stranglehold on India’s food and agriculture system. In a review of recent trends titled ‘Food Without Choice’ (The Tribune, November 1) Prof Pushpa M. Bhargava (who was nominated by the Supreme Court in the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee to protect safety concerns), an internationally...