The past couple of months have seen a renewed attack on the National Advisory Council (NAC). The NAC has been decried as an unconstitutional, undemocratic, “super-cabinet” where unaccountable “jholawalas” hatch harebrained schemes guaranteed to run the government aground. Another line of criticism has focused on the process of the formation of the NAC, its space within the Indian Constitution, and its capacity to influence policy. The two criticisms merge with...

The United Nations and its partners are promoting the use of all possible means of communication, including social networking, Blogs and even flash mobs, to get the message out on the benefits of breastfeeding beyond clinics and delivery rooms to the wider public. Breastfeeding is directly linked to reducing the death toll of children under five, yet only 36 per cent of infants below the age of six months in developing...

How much poor is poor enough? If you ask this question to the Planning Commission of India, you might be highly disappointed at the response. Many of India 's poor die out of hunger and because they don't have acceptable housing. Some of India 's poor even live in makeshift homes on train station platforms, an example of the 78 million Indians who lack proper housing facilities. Still, according to...

While, the threats of a nuclear fall-out, borne out of a tragedy that happened in the Fakushima Nuke Plant in Japan, started a debate about the positives and negatives of nuclear energy. The media completely ignored the protests and the cries that were being carried out (in fact, for the last 10 to 15 years) in Northern Kerala as well as Southern Karnataka to ban the Pesticide Endosulfan. Perhaps, after the...

“An attempt to give intermediaries the right to control content” “These rules give government the ability to gag free speech and block any website it deems fit” “Though there is no dispute on content monitoring, there are grey areas in the rules” Cyber activists, bloggers and legal experts are crying foul over the new rules and guidelines under the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008, that lay additional focus on content regulation and information...