-Press release by National Alliance of Peoples' Movements  dated 28 November, 2019 In yet another of its egregious legislative misadventures, the BJP Government with support from some other parties, passed the regressive 'Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights)' Bill, in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, despite wide-spread opposition by members of the transgender, intersex and gender non-confirming communities, seeking referral of the Bill to a Select Committee. We have all been witness to...

-The Telegraph Kairana: Ganna, the sugarcane crop, is threatening to overshadow any talk of "Jinnah" and sour the BJP's chances in Monday's test against a combined Opposition in a corner of western Uttar Pradesh. After the shock setbacks in Gorakhpur and Phulpur in March, the Kairana Lok Sabha by-election has become crucial for the BJP. It's also critical for its rivals, offering a test, days after the Karnataka drama, of whether a united...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-Newsclick.in With sixty percent children malnourished in the state, the implementation of the Integrated Child Development Services, the largest scheme to provide nutrition to children in the country, is nothing but a sham. Sitting outside her semi-pucca house in Bilgram block, Kasturi says, "My children get five fistful of panjiri once a month from the Aanganwadi Centre." Thirty-three year-old Kasturi has never, in her parents' village or her in-law's village seen an...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A dalit rally organized by the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organizations (AICSO), an umbrella body of dalit organizations, at Jantar Mantar on Monday demanded that the Lokpal Bill be more inclusive and the institution have representation from SC, ST and OBC communities. Attended by BJP leader Nitin Gadkari and Congress leader K Raju, the rally slammed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for not making its...