Monica Das Gupta is a senior social scientist at the World Bank. Her field research in Punjab, when she was at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, established that sex differentials in child mortality in rural Punjab persisted despite relative wealth, socio-economic development including rapid universalization of female education, fertility decline, and mortality decline. Amartya Sen’s writings drew attention to female foeticide and infanticide in Asia that led to...

What have the poor tribals of Orissa in common with the latest Hollywood hit Avatar? Apparently, there are uncanny similarities between the 3D animation movie and a documentary made on the Dongria Kondh tribe of Orissa by Survival International (SI). The ten-minute documentary is titled ‘Mine: story of a sacred mountain’ brings out the plight of the indigenous people. The SI has appealed to Avatar’s director James Cameron through media...

A recent survey carried out by the TNUEF brings to light details of the discrimination Dalits in Madurai have faced for generations. OVER seven decades have rolled by since the freedom fighter A. Vaidhyanatha Iyer successfully led Dalits into the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, overcoming all the impediments posed by the casteist forces that were hell-bent on thwarting the historic event. But the stark reality is that “hidden apartheid” against...

Twenty-five years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the biggest industrial disasters in history, the country’s pollution watchdog has found huge quantities of chemicals in underground water and soil in a 2.4-km radius of the Union Carbide factory.  During a study of 390 tonnes of toxins abandoned in the now-closed factory, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) discovered high levels of chloroform and benzene in underground water, mostly near...

The projection by the international water resources group that India will have a water deficit of as much as 50 per cent by 2030 is a wake-up call for policymakers. As early as in 1999, the National Commission on Integrated Water Resources Development had issued a similar warning, albeit without assigning any numbers, and had called for urgent measures to cope with the emerging crisis. The report of the “2030...