Forty five signatures and one demand – end all forms of child labour to implement the Right to Education (RTE) Act in letter and spirit. This was the content of a petition addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The government should ensure that millions of children engaged in child labour were included in the implementation of the RTE Act. With this historic piece of legislation, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation...

The "dreaded" Maoist captured by joint forces on Wednesday the only one apparently caught alive at the encounter site where eight rebels lay dead is a 20-year-old mute and mentally challenged youth from Duli village. No wonder, police haven't been able to make him speak. In what may cast a shadow on the way the police are rounding up suspects, Rameshwar Murmu has been branded a hardcore Maoist and slapped...

Most children working in dhabas and tea stalls in the capital harbour dreams of going to school, but their poverty-ravaged families and employers discourage them, says an ongoing study being conducted by legal students of Kalinga Institute of Technology (KIT), Bhubaneswar. The KIT team comprising Vaishali Singh, Neha Tripathi and Shika is in the city for a month to study the status of deprived urban children working in dhabas, hotels and...

A UNESCO dossier examines the problems faced by the original tribal inhabitants of the Andaman islands. SINCE the 1780s, a variety of players have vied for space in the Andaman archipelago. Today, apart from the three wings of the country's armed forces, others including rice farmers, timber merchants and academics are trying to push out its original inhabitants from their traditional habitats. For the first time in the past 150 years,...

Bhopal marked the horrific beginning of a new era. One that signalled the collapse of restraint on corporate power.  Over 20,000 killed. Over half a million victims maimed, disabled or otherwise affected. Compensation of around Rs.12,414 per victim on average on the 1989 value of the rupee. ($470 million or Rs.713 crore. And that divided among 574,367 victims.) Over a quarter-of-a-century's wait. To see seven former officials of Union Carbide...