-The Indian Express The steady state efficiency of healthcare needs to be raised so that crises like this one can be avoided. In any free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty; all are responsible.” While these words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel ring true for many social and political ills that appall us, they are also a timely reminder of our collective responsibility to correct the pathetic state of...

-The Times of India Though laws mandate creches, daycare is like a dream for unorganized labourers. A house is being built in Vasant Vihar, one of the many plots in the neighbourhood under construction. Men and wom en are hard at work. On the ground floor, two-year-old Jitin has been standing by a plastic can for a long, long time. A string around his ankle tethers him to a table. "He could hurt...

-The Hindu District Mineral Foundations were set up to protect the interests of Adivasi communities who have borne the costs of mining. But they are flawed in their current form Through 2011-13, dogged investigators from the Justice M. B. Shah Commission on illegal mining toured the rust-red villages, forests and rivers of northern Odisha, and trawled through reams of official records including from the environment, minerals, railways, and revenue departments. They met...

-IPS News GUNTUR, India: Thirty-seven-year-old Kode Sujatha stands in front of a hut with a palm-thatched roof, surrounded by a group of men shouting angrily and jostling one another for a spot at the front of the crowd. Each of the boatmen, who carry sand mined from a nearby river to the shore every day, wants to be paid before the others.   Sujatha stares hard at them, holds up a piece of paper...

-The Indian Express A joint venture between the Railways and the Karnataka government, the original project involved construction of 329 bridges and 29 tunnels, and required felling of more than 2.5 lakh trees on 965 hectares of forest land.  The Rs 2,315-crore Hubli-Ankola railway line, cutting across the Western Ghats in Karnataka, has been shown the red signal by a Supreme Court panel on forest and wildlife, which said that the...