Many in India have embraced Christianity to escape the age-old caste oppression of the Hindu social order, but Christianity itself in some places is finding it difficult to shrug off the worst of caste discrimination. In the town of Trichy, situated in the heart of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a wall built across the Catholic cemetery clearly illustrates how caste-based prejudice persists. Those who converted to Christianity from the...

KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

India's first caste-based census since 1931 will take place next year, the cabinet has announced. It said the controversial count would last from June-September 2011, after a full census had been held. Answering questions on caste will be optional. The move is intended to help target affirmative action benefits. Discrimination relating to caste in Hinduism - the complex social hierarchy based on people's occupations - is banned in India but still goes on. Critics...

Does political corruption in India take place because there are always some civil servants who are willing to collaborate in it? Or, is the lure of post-retirement assignments a major reason for spinelessness of the senior civil servants? The affirmative answer to these questions has come from none other than bureaucrats themselves. Recently, they made these facts and many others -- usually, a subject of whisper in corridors of power...

The National Advisory Council's proposals on the Food Security Bill represent a bad deal for the poor. The struggle for an effective and equitable Food Security Bill (FSB) has received a setback with the disappointing proposals put forward by the National Advisory Council. There is a disturbing disjuncture between what is being claimed and the actual implications of the proposals. Indeed it may be said that the NAC proposals create new...