BANWARA, India – In the fall of 2006, Gita Devi was pregnant with her sixth child when her family fell on hard times. A severe drought made it more difficult than ever to find farm work here in India’s northeastern plains. The family couldn’t afford food. It was unable to get a government ration card to buy grains and rice at steep discounts, even though it clearly was poor enough to...
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Starving in India: Legislating Food Security-Ashwin Parulkar
Over the past week, I’ve chronicled my investigative research on starvation in India – a project I’ve been working on with a colleague from the Centre for Equity Studies, a New Delhi think tank. We’ve told stories of people who were forced to eat poisoned roots to stay alive; a family that suffered the deaths of members from three different generations in a span of 24 hours; a woman faced with...
More »SC upholds Right to Education Act, paves way for revolution in schooling-Dhananjay Mahapatra & Himanshi Dhawan
With the Supreme Court throwing its full weight behind the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, (better known as the Right to Education Act or RTE Act) on Thursday, the composition of students in schools as well as the economics of running schools will undergo dramatic changes. The apex court upheld the constitutional validity of the Act and directed all schools, including privately-run schools, irrespective of the...
More »Post-CAG report, Congress wants Raman Singh to quit
-The Hindu Chhattisgarh government indicted for favouring firm in award of coal block The Congress on Tuesday demanded the resignation of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, citing the contents of a Comptroller and Auditor General's report that has indicted the State government for flouting norms in the award of a coal block to a firm owned by recently elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Ajay Sancheti who, the party said, is “close...
More »Delhi's irony: Urban Poverty-Srinand Jha
Each time 25 year old Salma takes her one year old son Zubair to the Batla Clinic (a private clinic in Delhi) for a shot of the DPT, the cost of transportation and the vaccine adds up to approximately Rs.500. When it is time for Zubair to take the next immunization dose, Salma may find that the expenses have entirely spiraled out of her reach. New vaccines and expensive brands of baby...
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