The latest round of data on the 2011 Census shows that the country is exhibiting distinct signs of trading up as material living conditions improve for large sections of the population. Although this aggregate picture is not uniform across the country, analysts believe that the upward material mobility in society is creating the basis of a new consumer boom in the economy—serving up a perfect backdrop ahead of the presentation of...

-The Telegraph Most poor families in jharkhand may not have heard of the word “bank”. But they are banking on a better future for their daughters, thanks to the ubiquitous village post office, which they are now embracing to reap the benefits of a thoughtful government scheme. Over 2,000 saving accounts have been opened at different post offices across districts in just one month to tap the Mukhyamantri Ladli Laxmi Yojana that...

Ten years after the killings in Gujarat, Narendra Modi has neither expressed regret nor has he been held accountable for those mass deaths. Where do we go from here? Anand Teltumbde (tanandraj@gmail.com) is a writer and civil rights activist with the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai.   Just thinking of it, a shiver runs down my spine. I had my own brush with how the Hindutva gangs carried out the...

Closed mines and resultant unemployment are still stoking Naxalism in Saranda, a maiden jan adalat (public hearing) held 160km from the steel city insisted today, indicating that more needed to be done to make the much-touted central action plan for the red turf a long-lasting success. More than 1,000 villagers from the Maoist dens of Noamundi, Gua, Kiriburu and Barajamda among others, which fall in the mining belt of Saranda command...

-ANI Sunita Kumari, a twelve year old Dalit girl from Balthar Mod, jharkhand, a student of class seven, was forced into marriage not once but twice. Her first tie-up was at the age of seven with a mentally challenged person residing in the nearby Siktia village. Soon after the marriage Sunita escaped from the trap and the first thing she did after coming back was to request her mother to let her...