The ends may justify the means, but let's be clear - in rural India, extremes of coercion are being used to encourage toilet use Robert Chambers recently wrote that community-led total sanitation is leading to a development revolution, especially in south Asia. I agree with his assessment of sanitation's importance. In practice, however, the success of community-led efforts often hinges on the use of outright coercion. In my experience, the measures...

Right to education (RTE) in Karnataka is likely to remain circumscribed even after July 5, the day fixed by the state government to implement the RTE Act. The implementation is certain to run into a plethora of problems as the state is waiting for a response from the Centre on sharing the financial burden of enforcing the law. Primary and secondary education minister Vishveshwar Hegde Kageri said, “We have brought the...

On June 12, Ravi Shankar Ratnam helped Ram Krishna Yadav resume eating after Yadav had fasted for a week. This wouldn’t have made the headlines of every Indian newspaper the next morning if it hadn’t been for the fact that both men had achieved a state of demi-divinity through the tried-and-tested process of Hindu name-inflation. Ram Krishna Yadav became Swami Ramdev when he took sanyas and after his extraordinary success...

-The Telegraph Hundreds of Dalits embittered by a caste clash with Jats last year today vented their anger by throwing stones at police in a restricted zone, leading to a baton-charge and several arrests. The Dalits assembled this morning outside the Hisar district collector’s office to protest against cases of atrocities by Jats. They were angry because six upper-caste Jats, among the key accused in a case of caste violence last year,...

The first global report on disability reveals how the exclusion of 1 billion people – invisible in official statistics and absent from aid budgets – is holding back development progress The UN millennium development goals (MDGs) may not be met by 2015 unless urgent action is taken to address the needs of people with disabilities, according to the first world report on disability. More than 1 billion people live with a disability,...