INSIDE his hovel of branches and rags, a grizzled pauper called Badshah Kale keeps a precious object. It is a note, scrawled by a policeman and framed by Mr Kale, proclaiming that he “is not a thief”. For members of his Pardhi tribe, who are among some 60m Indians considered criminal by tradition, this is treasure. Squatting beside Mr Kale, on a turd-strewn wasteland outside Ashti, a village in India’s western...

There will be no census exercise in several hundred villages in Chhattisgarh which have been rendered out of bounds for government officials by Naxalite groups. District administrations of Jagdalpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur and Kanker, all part of undivided Bastar which was once one of the largest districts in the country, have informed senior officials in Raipur that it will be difficult for them to carry out the census exercise — counting...

If you want to understand why the Maoists grow stronger, watch frail Shyam Charan Kisku, 5, as he keeps hunger away by nibbling at a wild berry called Kendu on a hot April afternoon. Kisku and 40-odd children in this scraggly village of mud-and-thatch homes, 180km south-east of Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi, did not get their free lunch this day under the national mid-day meal scheme, the world’s largest cooked-meal programme. Kisku’s mother,...

The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Union government’s flagship scheme to improve healthcare services in rural areas, is likely to be extended by three years to 2015, two senior health officials said. NRHM, which completes five years of implementation on Monday, seeks to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates, prevent disease, control population and ensure gender balance in rural India, according to the government website. It was launched in 2005 as...

Tens of thousands of Indian women and their families will have access to quality maternal and child health-care services thanks to a partnership announced today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and a chain of small hospitals in India for low-income clients. LifeSpring Hospitals has signed up to the Business Call to Action (BCtA), a UNDP supported global initiative challenging companies to apply their business expertise, technology and innovative...