Pointing out that a disconnect exists between mass media and mass reality in India today, P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor of TheHindu, said the media had lost its sense of priorities and was out of touch with the problems of a vast section of the population of the country. He was delivering the Silver Jubilee Lecture on “Mass media: But where are the masses?” at the Indira Gandhi National Open University...

PATNAGARH: For generations they have been weaving magic, from bamboo. But, traditional bamboo workers are now close to breaking and the onslaught of substitute materials and government policies since past some decades have driven bamboo weavers to poverty and starvation. The bamboo artisans of Kolpada in Khaprakhol block under Balangir district are leading a life of penury. Inhabited by primitive Kol tribe, by virtue of which the village gets its name,...

India can’t be made slum-free very soon, says a government panel. Why did we even try? So it’s kinda official: India won’t be able to make slums disappear in the ‘next five years’. When in June 2009, President Pratibha Patil told Parliament that ‘her government’ was planning to make the country slum-free in half a decade through a new scheme, not much attention was paid. However, like the eradication of poverty...

Bhopal marked the horrific beginning of a new era. One that signalled the collapse of restraint on corporate power.  Over 20,000 killed. Over half a million victims maimed, disabled or otherwise affected. Compensation of around Rs.12,414 per victim on average on the 1989 value of the rupee. ($470 million or Rs.713 crore. And that divided among 574,367 victims.) Over a quarter-of-a-century's wait. To see seven former officials of Union Carbide...

The Supreme Court on May 7 ruled that natural resources were national assets that belonged to the people and were ideally exploited by public sector undertakings. This obviously implies that local communities, including tribals, living on mineralised land, enjoy entitlements but not prescriptive ownership rights to such national assets. This is an important reiterative clarification defining mineral rights in Fifth Schedule areas that are currently in contention. Whether PSUs should...