Many in India feel betrayed that neoliberal economic policies have not ended but increased fraud and corruption Corruption is not exactly new in India. Quite apart from the extensive historical evidence of its spread, during and after the "mixed economy" period of state planning, the "licence-permit raj" was regularly accused by commentators of breeding graft, constraining economic activity and forcing citizens to be at the mercy of corrupt officialdom at all...

For decades, the victims of communal and targeted violence have been denied protections of law that the rest of us take for granted. It's time to end this injustice. In a vibrant and mature democracy, there would be no need to have special laws to prosecute the powerful or protect the weak. If a crime takes place, the law would simply take its course. In a country like ours, however, life...

A report by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) reveals that there is a strong link between farmers’ suicides and denial of social and gender justice. It says that farmers’ suicides, which are a grim marker of India’s agrarian crisis, will become more severe in times to come due to the existing gender and caste-based discrimination. Issued by CHRGJ and the International Human Rights Clinic (at New York...

A World Health Organisation agency evaluates electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones for carcinogenicity. THERE has been a dramatic increase in the use of the mobile phone worldwide since its introduction in the mid-1980s. According to the estimate of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), currently there are about five billion mobile phone subscribers globally. In the past decade or so, there has been growing concern about the possibility of adverse health effects,...

A recent study finds that selective abortion of girls, especially for pregnancies after a firstborn girl, has increased substantially in India. CENSUS 2011, which brought out several positive features with regard to education, literacy and fertility rates, also confirmed the disturbing trend that had been reported for the first time in the 1991 Census – the increasing gap between the figures for male and female children in the 0-6 age...