-The Indian Express In the industrial areas of the National Capital Region, life is tied to the assembly line. But even if rarely, workers clear a space for that which seems impossible: thought and contemplation, and even the artistic life. When the whir of engines and the clang of metal against obstinate metal die down, when the neon lights go down in hundreds of sooty factory buildings in Haiderpur, Ashish Kumar opens...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...

-The Hindu Police officials who have worked for years cracking cases related to the Bawariyas say their modus operandi is similar to this case. The Bulandshahr gang rape has once again turned the spotlight on the nomadic tribe of Bawariyas. The socio-economic history of the tribe reveals how their sustained alienation from the rest of the population forced generations to turn into criminals. The Bawariyas are natives of Rajasthan and have now spread...

-The Hindu We need to rethink social safety nets in India’s growing economy so that they can also focus on the accidents of life rather than solely on the accidents of birth. Sometimes the grand narratives of the Left and the Right do not seem to have any relationship with the lived experiences of ordinary Indians. For the past two decades, the Left has tried to expand social welfare programmes for the...

-The Hindu India must convert its young population to a competitive advantage, and nutrition and health are foundational to that outcome. The “Global Nutrition Report 2016” once again demonstrates India’s slow overall progress in addressing chronic malnutrition, manifest in stunting (low weight for age), wasting (low weight for height), micronutrient deficiencies and over-weight. Our track record in reducing the proportion of undernourished children over the past decade has been modest at best,...