The hunger and malnutrition situation in the country has shown marginal improvement, according to the HUNGaMA report. ONE area that has always bothered policymakers in a growth-obsessed economy is the state of the social sector, in particular figures indicating the numbers of people going hungry or are homeless and children who are out of school, the poor nutritional status of women and children, and the high infant and maternal mortality rates....

-CNN-IBN   Contrary to the dominant narrative that areas where Naxalites are strong are where the state has been absent, for the last 100-150 years, there has been a gradual expansion of the state in tribal areas regardless of whether the people want it or not. However, the state has been expanding in the wrong areas. You have an extension of the forest department, the bureaucracy, the patwari and the forest guard....

Rejecting the government's proposal to amend Section 300 of the Indian Penal Code to include ‘honour killings' within the definition of murder on the ground that the existing provisions are adequate to take care of the situations leading to such killings, the Law Commission has drafted fresh legislation that seeks to declare such panchayats unlawful. The Prohibition of Unlawful Assembly (Interference with the Freedom of Matrimonial Alliances) Bill, 2011 proposes no...

The Jaipur Literary Festival, a giddily chaotic celebration of the written word set on the grounds of a Rajasthan palace, ended in misery and embarrassment today, with the organizers bowing to pressure from local security forces and scotching plans for Salman Rushdie to “appear” at the festival, finally, by video link. Rushdie had already been forced to cancel plans to come to Jaipur after he had received intelligence reports—bogus intelligence,...

The Supreme Court on Monday told the Army to not “play with the courts” and stop taking recourse to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to stall prosecution in the 2000 Pathribal encounter case in Jammu and Kashmir. The apex court asked the Army to come clean on whether they want to start court martial proceedings of eight officers accused of killing five persons in the encounter or let...