Several activists have asked the Planning Commission to take into account cultural norms if it wanted to ensure success of minority welfare schemes. To make his point, Shabnam Hashmi, of the NGO Anhad, cited as example the plan panel’s proposal of giving bicycles to girls from the minority community where school attendance is low. “This,” Hashmi said, “shows the complete lack of understanding of cultural norms in Muslim areas.” While bicycles provide mobility...

-IANS Lucknow, April 27: Seema Saroj, a resident of Pratapgarh district in Uttar Pradesh, was denied payment under the rural jobs scheme for months. She then joined Nari Sangh, a women's group working for the rights of people, and took on the authorities to get her pending dues. Saroj is one among over 80,000 women from 666 gram panchayats in nine districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh who have, under the umbrella of...

A gold medal fetches Rs 51,000 in Haryana and Rs 7,000 in Delhi. In Jharkhand and Bihar, it does not even fetch a return train ticket. Sandeep Oraon of Sangrampur, Ranchi, and Raj Kumar Sharma of Barharia, Siwan, struck gold for Delhi in the Para Athletics National Championship 2012 in Bangalore, which concluded on March 28, but said they would have felt more honoured to represent their home states had the...

Natives of Niyamgiri feel that the police is acting as an agent of the Vedanta group, playing dirty tricks to help the company go ahead with its plans to mine bauxite from the sacred hills ONE OF the world’s most controversial mines is back in the spotlight after hundreds protested against renewed efforts to mine Odisha’s Niyamgiri Hills. Dongria Kondh and Niyamgiri supporters held their own ‘public hearing’ in Odisha...

-Live Mint At a time when India plans a multi-pronged attack on malnutrition in 200 high-burden districts, it will pay to examine the cracks in state institutions that have led to past failures and can still derail well-intentioned plans. Melghat, a tribal corner in the northeastern fringes of India’s richest state—Maharashtra—is an apt example of almost everything that has gone wrong in India’s response to malnutrition and child deaths. Every 14th child dies...