Indian Social Action Forum, Janhastakshep, People's Union for Civil Liberties, All-India Students Association and other citizens' groups jointly staged a protest demonstration near Maharashtra Sadan here on Monday condemning the detention and harassment of yatris taking part in the anti-nuclear yatra in Maharashtra. In a memorandum to the Resident Commissioner of Maharashtra, the protesters demanded that there be no interruption in the route of the yatra and also an end to...
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The Perils of Endosulfan
As the stage is set for the crucial meeting of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP), a global regime to protect human health and the environment from dangerous chemicals, to be held in Geneva from April 25, a showdown between the Centre and Kerala has been underway. In the meeting with an all-party delegation from Kerala, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has reiterated the position taken by Union ministers...
More »The Tunnel’s Last Mile by Neelabh Mishra
I am not unduly worried by the muck being hurled at non-government members of the government-notified drafting panel for the Lokpal Bill and recall the beginning of the village-based RTI movement in 1996 in Rajasthan. One of the ridiculous allegations against the agitation leaders was that they had received a hefty commission from a Japanese manufacturer of photocopiers who would profit hugely from the demand for photocopied panchayat documents if...
More »Pro-poor judicial initiatives: now for a media push by S Viswanathan
Three pronouncements made on three consecutive days this month by the Supreme Court of India have brought relief to different groups of economically and socially deprived people. The beneficiaries include children sold out by poor parents to work in circuses as child labour; young men and women determined to get married crossing caste barriers and harassed for that very reason by ‘khap panchayats'; and the hungry poor across the country...
More »BPL's dividing line by Moyna
Government undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor households. As a consequence, the BPL survey that was to...
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