While Punjab remains, in popular perception, the land of plenty, a group of economists at Punjab Agriculture University (PAU) has revealed that the picture isn't rosy at all — in fact it's grim. Rural indebtedness has touched Rs 35,000 crore and, worse, 3,000 debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide in the last eight years. Economists are also relating the suicides with high illiteracy among the poor farmers and say Punjab needs...

The aftershock of the global financial crisis threatens to deprive millions of children in the world’s poorest countries of an education, the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report warns. With 72 million children still out of school, a combination of slower economic growth, rising poverty and budget pressures could erode the gains of the past decade. “While rich countries nurture their economic recovery, many poor countries face the imminent prospect...

A study finds ambiguities in the law to protect women against domestic violence and lack of knowledge of the Act among relief providers. ON October 26, 2006, Parliament enacted the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, not only to recognise the hitherto unrecognised and latent forms of violence against women in domestic relationships (in and outside marriage), but also to provide a civil remedy to ameliorate the conditions of...

A landless labourer dies on Christmas day after going without food for five days. Neither he nor his wife, who was a job card holder under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, knew they could demand work or avail of unemployment benefits as a right It was a death that could have been avoided. Kishen Singh, a 45-year-old landless labourer, died of hunger in Champakheda village in south Rajasthan. What...

The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act was billed to be a giant leap towards universalization of education in India. However, it has acquired the dubious distinction of being the only fundamental right that exists just on paper. More than seven years after the Constitution was amended in 2002 to make free and compulsory education to children in the age group of 6-14 a fundamental right and over four...