Everyone has a right to information affecting their lives but too often government secrecy and a lack of accountability ensure that the public are deprived of vital facts, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today as he called for a wholesale change in attitudes towards press freedom. Mr. Ban told a panel discussion being held at United Nations Headquarters in New York to mark the annual World Press Freedom Day that “there...

Tradition is hard to follow in the current jet age. The struggle to survive combined with the hectic demands of the modern day living are fast leaving behind the traditional cultural values which have been treasured by our ancestors. The exception to an extent was the rural Jharkhand. Even amidst the electronic blitzkrieg and cacophonic sounds emerging even from mobile phones the traditional music during various local festivals is still...

Interim Observations of the Jury of Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt The Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt (organised by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens) was held in New Delhi from April 9 to 11, 2010. Its jury comprised retired Supreme Court judge Justice P.B. Sawant, retired Bombay High Court...

By the end of the third day (i.e. 11th April, 2010) of the The Independent People’s Tribunal that took place at Constitutional Club between 9 and 11 April, 2010, Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Sawant, while concluding, said that participatory democracy has been lacking in India. Democracy can never be equated with elections only. The jury during the 3-day long People’s Tribunal heard the testimonies of a large number of...

A nation where hungry children are forced to eat mud has no right to call itself a superpower or a civilised nation. What makes such reports frustrating for someone like me, who has been feeding poor children for the past one decade, is that reaching food to hungry children is not complicated or costly. It costs very little to give a child the required amount of calories and supplements she...