-Governance Now Villagers say they had to pay Rs 5,000-10,000 to get selected for the housing scheme Nalanda: Once again I paid a visit to Ravidas Tola neighbourhood in Maghra village of Biharsherif Block. Ravidas is a community that is classified as mahadalit, the most marginalized of the marginalized lot. It was early in the morning, and most people were in a rush as if in hurry to reach office. I stopped...

-The Hindu Demand institution of murder charge against the Mumbai ACP Vasant Dhoble The street vendors of Delhi launched a nation-wide campaign against “police terror” on Sunday, demanding that the police be made accountable to the public. Under the umbrella of the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), they formed a human chain at Parliament Street to demand institution of murder charge against the Mumbai Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Vasant...

-Economic and Political Weekly The vigorous public discourse following the recent brutal gang rape and mutilation of the 23-year-old in Delhi is a positive sign but hopefully the demand for quick solutions will not ignore the complexities involved in dealing with all forms of violence against women. There are also other connected issues that require urgent attention including the description of a rape as a "state worse than death", making out...

-CNN-IBN Inside the crumbling housing estates of Shivaji Enclave, amid the boys playing cricket and housewives chatting from their balconies, winding staircases lead to places where lies a darker side to India's economic boom. Three months ago, police rescued Theresa Kerketa from one of these tiny two-roomed flats. For four years, she was kept here by a placement agency for domestic maids, in between stints as a virtual slave to Delhi's...

-The Hindu Activists question change of policy for rehabilitation; want cut-off date of March 2007 adhered to strictly Holding the Delhi Government squarely responsible for following a policy of large-scale displacement of slum dwellers without adequate norms for providing rehabilitation to all of them, activists working for the rights of slum dwellers have demanded that the cut-off date of March 31, 2007, be followed strictly to ensure that no one is discriminated...