Handloom weavers in Andhra Pradesh are in a crisis brought on by policy blindness and the emphasis on powerlooms. WHEN P. Pulliah, a weaver in the traditional cotton handloom centre of Chirala in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, describes the sarees he crafts, thread by delicate thread, his face lights up with joy. He animatedly explains that the sarees have a border on both sides. And they are fully embellished, he...

-AFP Later this month, India will be removed from a dwindling list of countries where polio is considered endemic, a huge achievement made possible by people like Madara, a 76-year-old street hawker.  At a temporary immunisation camp in a slum in the northern district of Ghaziabad, 23 kilometres (14 miles) from New Delhi, he is busy at work shepherding boisterous children into queues.  All around, social workers break open tiny bottles containing a...

His crime: he complained of corruption in rural job guarantee scheme Dhuraram Kuldiya, former Sarpanch of Somalsar Panchayat in Nohkha teshil of Bikaner district, did not sign an SOS he sent to Rajasthan Chief Secretary on Monday in the form of a letter. Instead, his son Bhanwarlal inked it. Not that Dhuraram is illiterate. Admitted to a private hospital here in the State capital now, he cannot use his hands for both...

-Express News Service Work on the survey of land at Gorakhpur village — the site for Haryana’s first nuclear power plant — came to a halt on Monday after irate villagers held three engineers of a private company hostage for five hours. According to sources, the engineers of DBM Geo-Technology and Construction Company, working for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, had gone to the village without taking the local administration...

-The Times of India It's been long that students in Delhi government schools have been at the receiving end of government apathy. Without the basic amenities at their disposal, and being on the blind spot of the lawmakers, theirs is a tale of woe, angst and robbed aspirations. Now, a group of volunteers and government school students have decided to speak up and highlight their plight to the world. Their medium...