-Frontline In Rajasthan, the abysmal state of school education has forced pupils, particularly girls, to come out in protest against the shortage of teachers and lack of infrastructure. IT was just over a year ago, on Gandhi Jayanti 2014, that girls of the senior secondary school of the town of Bhim in Rajasthan went on strike. The young, fresh-faced and neatly groomed girls were far removed from anyone’s idea of potentially rowdy...

-The Hindu Bhaurao Karhade, who considers Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali his cinematic Bible, sold five acres of farmland to make a rustic and gutsy Marathi film, Khwada. One of the important turn-of-the-century developments has been the democratisation of cinema. The steady spread of cine literacy, the strong influence of moving images combined with an easier access to technology and emerging online exhibition platforms has meant that potentially anyone who dreams of making...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi may claim that Dalits are being increasingly targeted under the present dispensation but statistics put out by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) during the last few years when UPA was in power show that crimes against Scheduled Castes rose almost steadily to 47,064 in 2014 from 39,408 in 2013 (19%), 33,655 in 2012 (17%), 33,719 in 2011, 32,712 in 2010 and 33,594 in...

-BBC This is the story of an extraordinary uprising, a movement of 6,000 barely educated women labourers who took on one of the most powerful companies in the world. In a country plagued by sexism they challenged the male-dominated world of trade unions and politics, refusing to allow men to take over their campaign. And what's more, they won. You may well have enjoyed the fruits of their labour. The women are tea pickers...

-India Today Taking a leap of unconventionality, a non-profit trust in collaboration with a local puja club based in north Kolkata will worship the very first transgender Durga idol on Panchami. In the 300-year-old history of Durga Puja in Bengal, this will the first time where devotees will worship a transgender Durga idol that has been fashioned after the androgynous form of Shiva and Parvati, Ardhanarishvara. Organised by the non-profit trust, Pratyay Gender...