-IDROnline.org/ TheWire.in "The problem with Indian democracy is that despite the presence of millions of voters, the pool of decision makers get smaller and narrower at the top." Aruna Roy is a social activist and founder of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). Her work and leadership led to the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005—a landmark act that empowers citizens to demand transparency and accountability from government institutions....

The virility of Muslim men vis-à-vis men from other religious communities have often been used as a political tool and to create a divisive agenda just before elections for getting votes from the majority of the Indian electorate who are Hindus. Instead of focusing on positive agendas like human development, employment generation, and poverty reduction, political campaigns just before the elections oftentimes reduce to mere communal propaganda (when a lot...

-TheWire.in Even in a state like Kerala, higher human development indices have not translated into equally solid gender outcomes. An interesting public policy question that has emerged over the last few years is why high human development indices are not translating into a better ‘gender status’ for Kerala. The Human Development Index (HDI) in Kerala (0.763) is the highest in India. The HDI is estimated as the geometric mean of three crucial aspects...

-Scroll.in Caste and religious identity have to be explicitly accounted for if the high burden of chronic malnourishment in India is to be addressed. There are few more glaring holes in the Indian development story than child health and nutrition. India has one of the highest rates of child stunting in the world: more than a third of its children under five years are short enough for their age to be counted as...

-The Hindu The case for reservations for women and transgender persons in State jobs and higher education The Bihar government recently announced 33% horizontal reservation for women in State engineering and medical colleges. While reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) is referred to as vertical reservation, horizontal reservation refers to the equal opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries, such as...