Six years after a Human Development Report on Gujarat was published, the state government has embarked on another survey for a similar report, albeit district-wise, whose publication date is yet to be decided. So far, study reports on five districts — Surendranagar, Jamnagar, Sabarkantha, Dangs and Surat — have been submitted whose drafts have been reviewed and sent back to the authors for consideration. G K Vyas, Director, Human Development, said that...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Understanding the Puzzling Nature of Poverty by Akash Kapur
Rahul Gandhi, the general secretary of India’s Congress party, often says that there exist “two Indias” — one of the rich, and one of the poor. Those two Indias were in evidence a couple of weeks ago, when closely timed events on opposite sides of the planet brought into relief the deep divides that in many ways define this country. In Mumbai on Nov. 7, President Barack Obama told a group of...
More »Child labour, still a common practice in large parts of rural India by Bidisha Fouzdar
In a small pastoral vand (hamlet) in Kutch, Gujarat, 10 year old Ramu wakes up at five in the morning. His mother serves him a hasty breakfast of bajra rotis after which he is packed off to the pasturelands surrounding their small hamlet to graze the family's buffaloes. Since his village does not have a working school, grazing the livestock is gainful employment from the point of view of Ramu's...
More »Damning audit by Purnima S Tripathi
The CAG indicts Uttarakhand for pursuing hydel power projects indiscriminately without concern for the environment. IN a severe indictment of the Uttarakhand government, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India said it was pushing the State towards a major environmental catastrophe by following a highly ambitious hydropower policy. In a report titled “Performance Audit of Hydropower Development Through Private Sector Participation”, which was released recently, the CAG substantiates the allegations...
More »Elephant deaths on the track a burning issue by G Prabhakaran
The rail track passing through forest areas in different parts of the country, including Walayar on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, have become a death trap for the wildlife, particularly elephants. Though a hue and cry is raised every time a tragedy strikes, the deaths of a large number of wild elephants in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Assam and West Bengal remain a burning issue. The recent incidents of train hits in these...
More »