The first meet of the newly constituted second National Advisory Council or NAC, which is expected to set the social agenda for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance or UPA government, on Thursday laid down its broad agenda for its functioning. The discussions, which lasted for over three hours, revolved around crucial legislations such as the Food Security Bill, the Communal Harmony Bill and the forest rights Bill. The 14-member council later...

Built into the economic dogma of growth first is the ingrained notion held by large segments of the nation's elite that the fabric of inequality is meant to remain unimpaired.  “The Challenge of Employment in India; An Informal Economy Perspective” sums up the findings of a National Commission set up in September 2004 to review the status of the unorganised/ínformal sector in India (Volume I Main Report and volume II...

A series of shots rang out in the night far beyond the barricaded perimeter of the Central Reserve Police Force camp here in Chhattisgarh?s Dantewada district. For a few minutes, the sentries on duty returned fire before their guns, and the ones that sounded in the distance, fell silent. By morning, the adivasi settlements around the camp had emptied, the villagers wary of being caught and questioned by the CRPF?s morning...

Take a look at the accompanying map and you can’t but notice the extent of overlap between India’s thickly forested areas, the regions with the bulk of the country’s most important mineral wealth and the territory over which Maoists are dominant. Is this just a coincidence? No, that would stretch credulity. So what connects the Maoist menace with forests and mining? Clearly, forests give a guerilla force its best chance...

Aruna Roy, the prominent political and social activist who spearheaded the campaign to institute the Right to Information Act in the 1990s, is an ardent critic of the anti-people and exclusionary policies of the first and the second United Progressive Alliance governments. A recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2000, she heads the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana (a trade union of workers and peasants) in Rajasamand, Rajasthan,...