Anti-nuclear campaigners in India see the earthquake that hit Japan last week, which threatens the meltdown of the Fukushima atomic power facility there, as a wakeup call for this country’s ambitious nuclear power programme. When India completed a nuclear power cooperation deal with the United States in October 2008, it threw open a 270 billion U.S. dollar market for nuclear reactors. Now members of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group are queuing...

Rights group Amnesty International has criticised a tough Indian law which it says has been used to detain up to 20,000 people without trial in Indian-administered Kashmir. Amnesty urged India to scrap the Public Safety Act (PSA) which allows detention for up to two years without charge. The group also criticised the judiciary for its failure to protect human rights of the detainees. Kashmir has been gripped by a violent separatist insurgency since...

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International today blamed India’s “failure” to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir for the “mounting discontent” among Kashmiris, virtually echoing separatists and Pakistan. Delhi rejects calls for the plebiscite, saying Kashmir is an integral part of India. Both Pakistan and the separatists say Kashmir is a disputed territory whose status must be determined by its people. Amnesty today released an 82-page report — titled “A Lawless Law”...

Soon after he exposed how bricks were bought for six times their value for roads that were never built in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Amarnath Pandey was shot near his home. The bullet, which he believes was fired by contractors who were benefiting from the brick scam, clipped his ear and grazed his skull, leaving him in hospital for weeks. Pandey, 56, a doctor from Robertsganj, a sleepy city...

This book discusses a new poverty agenda for Asia and the role of social policies in economic transformation and reducing poverty. The poverty-reduction agenda is well known. So is the debate over poverty. No one disputes the fact that poverty of income (or expenditure, as countries such as India do not collect household data on income) is an imperfect measure of poverty, as there are non-income dimensions, too. Consequently, we...