-Newslaundry.com Journalist P Sainath talks about his new online media venture - People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), and putting the focus back on rural India (website: www.ruralindiaonline.org) Please click here to read more and access the entire interview. ...

-The Hindu The programme needs to retain the momentum of a movement than that of a litter-cleaning project "Slum districts... consisted of poorly built houses, a deficiency of ventilation and toilets, unpaved narrow streets, mud, and stomach-turning stenches due to the presence of decaying refuse and sewerage. In such conditions, ill health was observably endemic." This is not a description of Indian cities today (though it may well be), but of Britain around...

-The Hoot Veteran reporter P. Sainath launches a new platform to portray rural India in all its complexity. A new development in journalism -- the launch of the People's Archive of Rural India (PARI) -- is looking to redefine the contours of the profession as understood and practiced. The brainchild of veteran rural affairs reporter, P. Sainath, PARI, with its focus on rural India's concerns, marks a significant shift in the tide...

Child sex ratio (CSR) in India has declined from 927 in 2001 to 918 in 2011 (girls per 1,000 boys), according to a new report entitled Missing Girls: Mapping the Adverse Child Sex Ratio in India (Census 2011). Of the total 640 districts in the country, 429 districts have experienced decline in CSR (see the link below).   Of these 429 districts, 26 districts exhibited drastic decline (of 50 points or more),...

-The Hindustan Times The editor, a liberal man, is taken aback by my question. "I don't hire people on the basis of their caste but their ability," he informs me when I ask how many Dalits he has in his newsroom. Nearly 70 years after Independence, my question should have been irrelevant. But a caste survey by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the University of Maryland, United States,...