-Hindustan Times The ministry of social justice and empowerment on February 17 updated the mandatory condition for the scholarship. Students from marginalised sections of society will no longer be able to study Indian culture, heritage, history and social studies under the government’s national overseas scholarship programme, a move that has been criticised by the teaching fraternity and the opposition Congress party. “The government should steer clear of deciding the choice of the topics...

-The Hindu A complaint of undue emphasis on rights creates the suspicion that citizens are being disempowered Rights and duties are conceptually linked to one another. There are no rights without duties. If a person has the right to something, it necessarily implies that someone else has a corresponding duty to ensure that it is not violated. For example, if an individual has a right to free speech, then it is the...

The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...

-The Hindu General category is better off than the SCs and STs, it says Sharp inequalities exist across different caste, religious, class and gender categories on various health indicators, according to a report by Oxfam India. The report titled “India Inequality Report 2021: India’s Unequal Healthcare Story” shows that the “general category is better off than the SCs and STs, Hindus are better off than Muslims, the rich are better off than the...

-Business Standard Oxfam India's inequality report draws attention to the county's unequal healthcare story hit further by Covid-19 When it comes to healthcare, people in general category are better off than Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) households; Hindus are better off than Muslims; the rich do better than the poor; men are better off than women; and the urban population fares better than the rural. These are the findings of Oxfam...