The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is facilitating the visits of representatives from several developing countries to witness India's amazing election exercise under South-South cooperation. Representatives from Lesotho, Nigeria, Malaysia and Namibia are already in India and have visited polling booths and electoral offices in various states of India including West Bengal and Karnataka. For inquiries or interviews, please contact Ms. Nandita Surendran-UNDP, phone no. +919810084776, Email: nandita.surendran@undp.org. Journalists and media...

-Human Rights Watch New Delhi: School authorities in India persistently discriminate against children from marginalized communities, denying them their right to education, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Four years after an ambitious education law went into effect in India guaranteeing free schooling to every child ages 6 to 14, almost every child is enrolled, yet nearly half are likely to drop out before completing their elementary education. The...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: "The teacher tells us to sit on the other side," said "Pankaj," an eight-year-old tribal boy from Uttar Pradesh, "If we sit with others, she scolds us and asks us to sit separately. The teacher doesn't sit with us because she says we are dirty." "The teacher didn't let us go to the toilet. One day, I asked her for permission to go to the...

-The Hindu     The extent of violence against the girl as foetus and infant shows how deep the bias against women is and why they will be secure only if India introspects and changes Over the next few weeks, there will be many tussles between our mostly male politicians over India's security. But almost no one will ask if a country can be secure when half its citizens live in deepening insecurity, threatened...

-The Hindu     While the stagnation in women's ability to control their own fate is disappointing, some of the other gender indicators are downright alarming On International Women's Day, the Election Commission of India held a special campaign to bring women voters to the polls. Although men and women vote at a more or less similar rate in State elections, women are 6-8 percentage points behind in the Lok Sabha elections where national...