Much like the tsunami waves that devastated many coastal areas five years ago, the closing weeks of 2009 saw an ill wind sweeping across many of our democratic institutions, highlighting that beneath the veneer of the nation’s aspirations towards great power status was a crumbling institutional core. To look at the fourth estate first. The preface to the Press Council of India’s “Norms of Journalistic Conduct” has a section that...

The impact of the global financial downturn has been felt keenly in the Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai - and that in turn is affecting the remote Indian village of Akhopur in the state of Bihar, from where Amarnath Tewary reports. In August 2008, Bharat Bhushan Tiwari - from Akhopur village in eastern Indian Bihar - took a loan of 71,000 rupees ($1,500) from a village moneylender to pay a...

The current food inflation is a result of food output growth not keeping pace with population growth Few recall that, just last month, there was a food security summit in Rome. In sharp contrast to the almost overwhelming coverage of the Copenhagen climate summit, it attracted far lesser attention from the heads of governments, as also from the media. This is somewhat strange as a food (and water) crisis can hit...

With the Ruchika molestation case causing an uproar, Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said on Friday that the Government has decided to "fast track" cases relating to women, including those involving rape, molestation and dowry. "At the National Consultation on Judicial Reforms held recently, the Government and the Judiciary have decided to prioritise and classify cases related to women, children and the disabled...classification is an important component of the...

In a clear indictment of the Punjab Police and the state government, National Commission for Women chairperson Girija Vyas set up a committee to examine the Ruchika Girhotra case. The NCW is also examining whether it can file a case to get damage compensation for Ruchika Girhotra's family. Vyas told reporters that she was setting up a committee of lawyers to examine the sequence of events that took place in...