Between democracy and darkness stands the judiciary. It stands heads and shoulders above the judicial systems in Asia. But it is in rapid decline. Ahead is pitch darkness Colin Gonsalves Delhi In the 61st year of the republic, surely, India has transited into Kalyug. Surveys of the Union of India as well as expert reports published by the Arjun Sengupta committee and the NC Saxena Committee appointed by the Central government...

Recent directions of the Delhi High Court to improve conditions for homeless people housed in Delhi’s night shelters need to be widely welcomed. At the same time, it should be realised that the problems of the nearly four-million homeless deserve wider and more regular attention as the lack of basic facilities for them at a national level is simply too glaring. Pucca and permanent shelters which can be used throughout...

Each night, as temperatures continue to plunge and Delhi shivers through its coldest winter in the last decade, a few more people lose their lives on its streets. The people who succumb to the cold include rickshaw-pullers, balloon-sellers and casual workers, the footloose underclass of dispossessed people who build and service the capital city of the country and yet are forced to sleep under the open sky. They die because...

BERHAMPUR: Justice seems to be eluding a 78-year-old woman, Padma Maharana, of Komand village under Rabha police station in Ganjam district. The senior citizen has become a destitute in her own land. She was ‘driven’ away from her village in 2002 by a group of miscreants who eyed her wealth. Having no way-out she moved to Bhubaneswar to continue her legal battle against the miscreants. The miscreants had also allegedly looted her...

Poverty is a multi-dimensional concept. Official statistics in India have always referred, arguably narrowly, to only income poverty (using the proxy measure of consumption expenditure from the NSSO surveys).The Suresh Tendulkar Committee report submitted to the Planning Commission is the latest input to the “Great Indian Poverty Debate”. While the increase in the number of poor households, as suggested by the Tendulkar Committee, may indeed help expand the coverage of...