-The Hindustan Times The level of food insecurity in India remains stubbornly high for a country that has experienced more than a decade of strong growth, attained robust levels of agricultural production and is a net exporter of food. So the widening gap between the country's economic confidence and the hunger that besets so many of its citizenry is a matter of concern. In the book Feeding India: Livelihoods, entitlements and capabilities,...

-The Hindu More needs to be done to enforce the law banning manual scavenging. This monsoon, India's Parliament passed a law of enormous social significance prohibiting and punishing manual scavenging, which remains the most degrading form of untouchability and caste discrimination in the country. This is not the first time this practice was outlawed: untouchability and forced labour were forbidden in the Constitution itself and, in 1993, a law was first passed...

-The Hindustan Times In recent years, there has been a constant stream of international attention given to the Indian middle class. Thanks to the expansion of this class, India's image has dramatically changed since the 1990s. Instead of the narrative about grinding poverty, India is now seen as the heart of new capitalism that is associated with high rates of growth as well as the consumerist elite and middle classes. The...

-Kafila.org This fact-finding exercise was coordinated by the CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS. Team members were the human rights activist and former civil servant Harsh Mander; former Director-General of the Border Security Force, E N Rammohan; Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University; National Integration Council member John Dayal; senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and CPA Director and senior editor Seema Mustafa. Introduction and Overview The first impression of the Muzaffarnagar countryside, now green...

-The United Nations A United Nations treaty entering into force today will extend the labour and social rights of some 53 million domestic workers around the world. From today, the Domestic Workers Convention will be legally binding for signatory countries. The treaty was adopted in 2011 by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and is the first of its kind. "Today's entry into force of Convention 189 sends a powerful signal to more than...