-Outlook Hit hard by demonetisation, India lost the tag of the fastest growing economy to China in the March quarter with a GDP growth of 6.1 per cent, pulling down the 2016-17 expansion to a three-year low of 7.1 per cent. The bad news of the economy growing at the slowest pace in three years mainly on account of poor performance of manufacturing and service sectors come at a time when the...

-Livemint.com Conviction rates for crimes against Dalits have declined sharply since 2011 The recent clashes between Dalits and Thakurs in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh (UP) have once again thrown the spotlight on the deep fault lines in Indian society. While violence against lower caste groups such as Dalits or scheduled castes (SCs) has a long history in the country, such crimes have been on the rise over the past few years, data...

-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  –...

-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...

-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,...