Clause 4.e.(1) of The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, [PESA] says: “Every Gram Sabha shall approve the plans, programmes and projects for social and economic development before such plans, programmes and projects are taken up for implementation.” Tribal villages are forcibly entered and village people are humiliated : The sad fact is the CRPF forces have barged into several villages in the Districts of Latehar,...

Nine of 10 mud-eating children are in the last stage of malnutrition. Eight of 10 people are deprived of every national social-security net and live with starvation and hunger. The average life span is 40 In April, the Hindustan Times revealed acute deprivation in the Uttar Pradesh village of Ganne, part of the former constituency of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.   Now, a Supreme Court inquiry team that visited the area...

Dalit women lead unhygienic lives for wages of Rs.15 a month  Caste hierarchy prevents women from doing any other job The Railways and municipalities are the biggest employers Each morning a group of Dalit women step outside their homes to “fulfil their social role” of cleaning dry latrines with their brooms and bare hands. They then carry human excrement in pots and baskets on their heads. Braving the worst possible form of caste...

The Centre is gearing to introduce a tribal policy that has been gathering dust for five years, hoping the move will win the tribals over from the Maoists. The draft of the National Tribal Policy, which proposes land rights for Adivasis and aims to bring their human development indices on a par with the rest of the country by 2020, will be placed before the cabinet this month, tribal ministry officials...

A social audit on the working of the ban on child labour in the domestic and hospitality sectors reveals a sorry state of affairs.  LIKE any normal child, Illyas from Varanasi, a 13-year-old, wanted to go to a regular school and become an important man some day. But poverty forced him to start working at an eatery for Rs.200 a day so that he could feed his younger siblings. He,...