-IPS News ATTAPPADI, India, May 4 2014 (IPS) - The death of a 10-day-old girl last November in the Attappadi tribal belt of Kerala, one of India's best performing states in terms of human development indices, shows how the country's battle against child mortality is far from won. The infant's mother, Saraswathy, a 20-year-old from the Kurumba tribe, was admitted to a government hospital, and delivered the next day. At 1.8 kg,...
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A Price to Pay for Selling on the Street -Neeta Lal
-IPS News New Delhi: Bhure Lal, a 33-year-old street-food vendor, has been selling his spicy ‘chaat' outside the New Delhi Railway Station for 15 years. But despite a punishing 12-hour work schedule, and a new law to protect hawkers like him, he doesn't take home enough to feed his family. More than half of Lal's weekly income from the ‘chaat', a lip-smacking pot-pourri that is particularly popular with women, is extorted by...
More »Another ‘Gujarat model’-Anupama Katakam
-Frontline A study on untouchability practices in 1,589 villages in Gujarat provides critical data for the Dalit movement to shape its interventions at the national and international levels. DESPITE laws making it punishable, untouchability continues to exist in the country in a vicious manner. A study titled "Understanding Untouchability: A Comprehensive Study of Practices and Conditions in 1,589 villages", conducted in Gujarat by the Navsarjan Trust, an organisation that promotes the...
More »New vote bank, traditional politics-Puja Mehra and Sowmiya Ashok
-The Hindu While migrant labourers see price rise as their primary concern, they still rate caste and religion as determining factors in their voting decision After the rural poor, farmers and the urban middle class, political parties are now seeking to make a vote bank out of migrant manufacturing labourers. The Bharatiya Janata Party's election manifesto promises the concept of "Industry Family" between workers and factory owners, but does not elaborate on...
More »How Suicide and Politics Mix in India -Sonora Jha
-The New York Times As politicians scramble for India's 815 million votes in the most expensive and closely contested general election in the nation's history, an unexpected protest is rumbling from what was once one of the country's most placid voter blocs: its farmers. The protest is inflamed by rising attention to the shocking suicide rate on India's hardscrabble farms. Since 1995, more than 290,000 farmers have killed themselves. Though that figure,...
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