People of dalit communities in the Gadarwara sub-division of district Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh are on the brink of starvation as they are facing harassment, economic sanctions and social boycott because they have refused to remove animal carcasses. A fact finding team of civil society organisations says that dalits at many places have been ‘imprisoned’ in their own houses as all entry and exit points have been blocked by the...

Indian policymakers are debating doing away with the mandatory rating of financial instruments in the long-term, among a set of measures aimed at strengthening the regulatory and disclosures regime for credit ratings. The expert group, set up by the High Level Coordination Committee on Financial Markets (HLCCFM), has made specific recommendations on improving and disclosing the way credit rating agencies rate financial instruments, and has sought debate on the very...

Is drought being used as an excuse to delay the national Food Security Act? An informal network of organizations and individuals involved in the Right to Food Campaign believe so. The campaign groups are demanding that a national consultative process on an improved draft bill must be started immediately so that the proposed Food Security Act could be passed as soon as possible. The campaigners also demand that exports of...

Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Prithviraj Chavan, is understood to have assured the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) that no changes would be made in the RTI Act without wider consultations. According to an NCPRI release, the Minister assured their delegation that the government would not take a final decision on the proposed changes in the RTI Act before “consulting the people.”...

Breaking decades of silence over unjust social norms, widowed, abandoned and destitute women from different states in India came together at the national capital to launch the National Forum for Single Women's Rights to demand food, healthcare, employment and rights to property. It has been more than eight years since the January 2001 earthquake struck the Indian state of Gujarat, but Hansa Rathore still cannot quite shake off memories of...