-The Indian Express The gangrape may have brought the tribal councils of this West Bengal district to notoriety, but it wasn't the first sexual abuse on their orders. What is more at play here though is growing outside interference in a region considered a vote bank, writes Madhuparna Das. On January 29 evening, 900 people of a village in Birbhum district's Labhpur block gathered near the hut of their headman. The hut,...

-The Hindu Rights may be self-evident and constitutionally secured; however, they do not automatically implement themselves In the last two years the highest courts in the country have responded to a mass call for more protection for women. Alongside, there have been many judgments from non-constitutional decision-making bodies like khap panchayats and kangaroo courts sanctioning violence against particular women or curtailing women's freedom in significant ways. Why is it that while there...

-The Indian Express Domestic workers in the state are meant to get minimum wage of Rs 5,000, health care benefits, scholarships for kids, life insurance. It's 4 am and Vasanthi B is already up. After years, it's now a habit, and she doesn't need an alarm to wake up to get her daughters Shweta, Shilpa and Shobha, aged 11, 9 and 7 respectively, ready for school. By the time they leave at...

-The Telegraph Jamshedpur: Residents of 23 villages in Seraikela-Kharsawan have alleged that Kandra-based thermal power plant Adhunik Power and Natural Resources Limited (APNRL), which started production over a year ago, is ruining their lives with the toxic fly ash it generates, creating yet another conflict between industry and community. The Adhunik power plant, located at Padamdih village in Kandra along Tata-Kandra road, only 15km from Jamshedpur, commissioned its first two phases of...

-Down to Earth G Nammalvar was one of a kind, a messiah of farmers who was revered as a saint-teacher by his followers. He was an agriculture scientist, a graduate of Annamalai University, who left a government job at the research station at Kovilpatti when he realised that he could do nothing for the resource-poor farmers who depend on rains to cultivate their parched land. Thus began an odyssey of half...