We have five million children in the labour market, say official figures. Their actual numbers may be four times as many. As a nation, we have failed each one of them…   Millions of our children still labour today, in factories, farms, kilns, mines, homes and city waste dumps, when they should be in school or in a playground. We profoundly fail these children, collectively depriving them of education, play, rest, healthy...

The Goa bench of Bombay High Court stretched the RTI Act's ambit to the maximum when it ruled that a governor's report to the Centre about the political situation in a state could not be kept under wraps and ordered its disclosure upon an application under the transparency law.  This has sent shock waves in the power corridors as the Union Cabinet headed by the prime minister relies on the secret...

The return of peace and normalcy in Kashmir is a reality. And to ensure a durable and lasting peace, a humane approach to handle the law and order situation may be required. In a vibrant, democratic country, authoritarian ways of suppressing people’s voices prove to be counterproductive. It may be recalled that the law and order situation in Kashmir worsened in the aftermath of unfair and rigged assembly elections of 1987,...

My attention was drawn to “An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of West Bengal” which was signed by thirty members of the civil society of Kolkata and Delhi. What disturbed me was the tone and tenor of the language used in the letter in denouncing Ms Mamata Banerjee’s bold initiative in inviting the Maoists of Junglemahal for a dialogue after “ceasefire”. May I ask with all humility who among the...

The state has done precious little to improve the lot of agriculture workers. Agricultural wage workers (AWW) earn their livelihood by working for wages in the agriculture sector. In India, AWWs are the second largest group of all workers, after owner-cultivators or farmers. Of the workforce of 402 million, AWWs are at least 110 million. Wage work in the agriculture sector has always been considered a low-status occupation in India, as agriculture...