Dalit activist Meena Kandasamy: This is something that has to be changed Dalits make up more than 16% of India's population of one billion. Yet, despite years of campaigning and state intervention, many of them still face discrimination in society. Their hardship has been highlighted at an exhibition in London. A little girl leans against a stained turquoise concrete wall. You first notice her face, which appears deep in thought - then your...

Vice-President M Hamid Ansari today said it is "anomalous" that over 250 million Indians were chronically undernourished although the nation has achieved self-sufficiency in foodgrain production. "This is anomalous looking at record food grain production in recent years," Ansari said quoting Food and Agriculture Organisation reports while delivering the convocation address at the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) here. Stating that the country has achieved self sufficiency in food grain...

The Union government's efforts to provide quick and quality insurance services to 38 lakh rural landless agricultural labourers in the state under the Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana (AABY) have suffered a serious setback with the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) refusing to renew the scheme. The LIC's decision has not only resulted in hardships not only to the poor households over the past six months but also to the children...

The Millennium Development declaration was a visionary document, which sought partnership between rich and poor nations to make globalisation a force for good. Its signatories agreed to explicit goals on a specific timeline. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set ambitious targets for reducing hunger, poverty, infant and maternal mortality, for reversing the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and giving children basic education by 2015. These also included gender equality,...

The United Nations officials from Bonn, Germany, will visit Gumla in the first week of November to take stock of changes that have taken place in villages in this tribal dominated district. Gumla is among the five districts in the state where government of India and UN programme of total village development is underway.   Ever since the district launched its Total Village Development Programme under its model village project in two villages...