-The Times of India MUMBAI: Over two decades after midday meals were introduced in city schools, one out of every three children studying in a municipal school is malnourished, an RTI reply has revealed. The data showed that undernourishment of students in these schools is accelerating with the incidence showing a four-fold jump over the last three years. In the same period, the utilization of midday meal budget fell from 81% to...

-Firstpost.com Dr Mano Ranjan has been working at the Institute of Infectious Diseases situated on the Anantapur-Kadiri Road in Andhra Pradesh since 2009. This is the premier institute for the entire Rayalaseema region (southern Andhra Pradesh) for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. Dr Ranjan gets 25 new HIV/AIDS patients every day. "It is a ticking time bomb," he says. Thirty percent of the cases are from hamlets in and around Kadiri, unarguably the...

-TheWire.in Without functioning hand pumps or any government intervention, villagers are being forced to drink contaminated water, exposing them to skin infections and diseases. Bundelkhand: Bundelkhand region, which is spread over 13 districts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, has often been in the news due to acute drinking water shortage. As the heat wave intensified and the water crisis peaked in many parts of the region, I spent three days  –...

-The Indian Express A survey shows that it is numerically insignificant. The unusual attention that is being devoted to the practice is politically motivated and a waste of resources Since May 11, the Supreme Court of India has been discussing the constitutional validity of the “triple talaq system” on a priority and on a daily basis, yet without the benefit of empirical data. The SC could have directed the government to launch...

-The Hindu Liberalisation has eroded the institutional capacity to train young people who might pursue liberal values The other day, a student asked me what exactly the word ‘liberal’ mean. She wanted to know whether ‘liberalisation’ promotes ‘liberal’ values. She had noticed that institutions of higher education, which are supposed to promote liberal values, were finding it difficult to resist ideological and commercial pressures triggered by the process of economic liberalisation. So,...