CITIES MAKE one simple promise to newcomers: Sacrifice yourself to me and your children shall prosper. This promise drew Ahmed Raza, a small-time wrestler from an Uttar Pradesh village and millions like him to the capital of newly-independent India. Raza kept his part of the bargain, yet half a century later, his daughter was pushed out of the city her father helped build, the only home she has known. “I...

Journalists who have made the transition to independent online publishing measure themselves against the same professional bar that print journalists do, and are equally differentiated as credible sources in much the same way as newspapers are. Only, the traditional media were holding them to a higher standard than its own, members of a panel discussion at the ongoing 16th World Editors Forum of WAN-IFRA here argued. If anything, some sections...

SOMETIMES, TO accentuate the intransigence of the present, one must revisit the past. So first, a flashback. The year is 2006. An ordinary November evening in Delhi. A slow, halting voice breaks into your consciousness. “How shall I explain? It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…” A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, made slow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force. “My bounden duty.” What could...

Children are now much higher on the global AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) agenda and there is a major shift in commitment, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s Board, to increase support for Preventing Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT). India has received extended support from the Global Fund for Preventing Parent-To-Child Transmission (PPTCT), according to the Fourth Stocktaking Report, produced by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund,...

The same exclusive report, with different bylines, in three rival dailies. Swathes of advertising dolled up as news stories. Is ‘paid news’ getting institutionalised? “Young dynamic leadership: Ashokrao Chavan,” read the headline of a prominent news item in the Marathi daily Lokmat (October 10). That was 72 hours before the people of Maharashtra went to vote in the State Assembly polls. The item was attributed to the newspaper’s "Special Correspondent,"...