-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Bankers come in pint size at an urban slum in Ranchi. And they run a bank for the children, by the children and of the children. Ten-year-old Nisha Kumari has an account in the bank — Children’s Development Khazana (CDK)—which opened in 2014. And her small pleasures of childhood is not held hostage to the priorities of her poor family. “During Durga Puja last year, a few relatives had visited...

-Hindustan Times Bangalore: He wore a crisp white shirt with matching trousers, a golden wristwatch and lots of gold jewellery. And yet, Bhimsen (name changed) hesitated before stepping inside the vast doors of the five-star hotel. A bellhop rushed towards him eagerly and ushered him into the banquet hall where the Dalit Samrakshana Samithi (DSS) was holding a seminar on Monday on BR Ambedkar's contribution to modernising India. The event at the...

-Economic and Political Weekly While insufficient sanitation facilities often get represented in statistics and are reported in the literature on urban infrastructure planning and contested urban spaces, what is often left out is the everyday practice and experience of going to dysfunctional toilets, particularly by women. By analysing the practices and problems associated with toilet use from a phenomenological perspective, this article aims to situate the issue in the everyday lives...

-The Indian Express Niggling procedural hassles stymie efforts to modernise antiquated labour regulations.   As it completes one year in office, the NDA government seems to have finally bit the bullet and taken up the controversial Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, for amendments that would allow easier retrenchment and closure norms for firms with up to 300 workers though ensuring that the employees get higher compensation in return. The draft code on industrial relations has...

-IPS News BELLARY, India: HuligeAmma, a Dalit woman in her mid-forties, bends over a sewing machine, carefully running the needle over the hem of a shirt. Sitting nearby is Roopa, her 22-year-old daughter, who reads an amusing message on her cell phone and laughs heartily. The pair leads a simple yet contented life – they subsist on half a dollar a day, stitch their own Clothes and participate in schemes to educate...