-Outlook As subsidies for the poor continue to be under attack, a ground-up report from 10-states shows how well welfare schemes have worked over the last 10 years. Ahead of Elections 2014, rights-based welfare schemes are under attack. To those who argue ‘Dolenomics' doesn't work, a survey of five schemes in 10 states shows that the Rs 1,68,478 crore annually the nation spends is making a real and tangible difference on...

-Survival International Anthropologist Dr. Felix Padel works with the tribes of Odisha in eastern India, including the Dongria Kondh, for whom Survival International has campaigned for 10 years. Felix is the great great grandson of Charles Darwin and lives in a remote village in Odisha. In this interview, he talks to Survival about the Dongria Kondh's relationship to their mountains, their heroic struggle against Vedanta, Darwin's evolution theory and the experience...

-The Hindu   "Stopping rape" isn't possible unless we change the way we tackle and think about ordinary violence Some images stay branded on your mind. The brutality visited on three young girls, before their bodies were found in a well; the pain of a five-year-old whose rapist used candles and an oil bottle to violate her further; the anger of the Dalit rape survivor in Uttar Pradesh who was told by a...

-The Hindu   Books will soon be procured for all the children, says district coordinator of SSA Tiruvallur: Asish Mehra sits in the front row of his class, flipping through his notebook. There is hardly any space between the Oriya letters, as if he is desperately trying to save paper. It is his only notebook, and it turns out Asish is indeed trying to make the paper last. He is one of the many...

-The Hoot    A significant agitation against land acquisition and the bail and re-arrest of its leader were barely noticed by mainstream media. Isn’t it the media’s disdain for lower caste/class dissenters, wonders ARITRA BHATTACHARYA. I remember my first glimpse of Dayamani Barla: there she was on the screen, fierce, stoic, talking about the ravages the Koel Karo dam and hydel power project would bring to the people of the region. I remember...