-The Times of India   Higher education in India should not perpetuate inequality of opportunity It's admission time again. Charming images of 'freshers' entering the campus and glossy advertisements of the universities we had never heard before hide the harsh reality of educational mortality from school to higher education. Elaborate coverage of rising cutoffs and entrance tests draw our attention to individual merit and luck. We tend to forget the overwhelming role of...

-Down to Earth   Punjab has been in the grip of cancer for over a decade but the government has ignored the threat.  It all started with a knot in her left breast. Within no time it grew to the size of a tennis ball. In pain, 40-year-old Raj Rani went to the doctor in her village in Punjab’s Ferozepur district. Finding no relief, she started doing the rounds of government hospitals in...

Model community forestry initiatives in Orissa are defying Forest Department efforts to control and exploit the region’s forests. ‘Heaven is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees / And hell is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees with a forest guard in it!’ Thus goes a song of the Muria Adivasis in the forests of Bastar in central India. Encapsulated in this simple expression, however, is...

-The Hindu THE SUNDAY STORY The property and real estate sections of free advertisement-only newspapers offer the best insight. Most advertisements titled ‘for vegetarians only’ were from areas such as Jayanagar, Basavangudi and Malleshwaram.   In the last 30 years, his firm has helped thousands of people find properties of their choice. He is one of the biggest names in the highly competitive real estate industry of Bangalore. Fardeen Ahmed (name changed)...

-The Hindu Finding a home to rent in India's national capital is an arduous task for anyone - but, an investigation by The Hindu has found, almost impossible for citizens who happen to be Muslim. Homeowners and property dealers contacted by reporters often firmed up deals, only to be disqualified as soon as they revealed their religion. Housing apartheid was at its worst in New Delhi’s most affluent and educated neighbourhoods: New...