-TheWire.in The re-conceptualisation of sex work as a form of sexual labour will increase sex workers’ accessibility to resources, mobilise them for representation and participation, and challenge Social Exclusion. One of the most unsettling debates in contemporary India has been on sex markets and sex work. Stemming from obscurantist sexual moorings of orthodoxy, the public impulse has been fragmentary. The premise underlying the internal contradiction is the delusive alienation of labour and sex. There...

-TheWire.in While the system was rightly designed to eliminate ghost beneficiaries, the impact of exclusion errors needs to be professionally and independently evaluated in detail. The direct benefit transfer (DBT) system has come to dominate the discourse on public service delivery in India. The existing rhetoric around its efficacy being one of anti-corruption, cost efficiency, and elimination of middlemen. Payments under DBT are made to low-income households using an elaborate, digitised system...

Online teaching was perhaps the most preferred mode (of the policymakers) for imparting education to school children in the last two years when schools faced closures thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was promoted by both the Central and State Governments when mobility almost came to a standstill (or got restricted in comparison to normal times) during the last two years. However, various studies (a list of those studies is...

-The Telegraph The three population groups number above 450 million, or a population greater than that of the US New Delhi: Adivasis, Dalits and Muslims in India have lower life expectancy than higher caste Hindus, a study has found, underlining how Social Exclusion and discrimination might be contributing to health disparities. Life expectancy is on an average about four years shorter in Adivasis, three years shorter in Dalits and around a year shorter...

-The Hindu On refugee issues, it ought to be among the most admired nations and not one that has much to be ashamed of — as now This month I introduced a Private Member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha proposing the enactment of a Refugee and Asylum law. The Bill lays down comprehensive criteria for recognising asylum seekers and refugees and prescribes specific rights and duties accruing from such status. It was...