-The Hindu Ten million married men and 35 million married women in the north India were married as children, according to a detailed analysis of the 2011 Census data. Topping the list is Rajasthan, where almost one-third or 30 per cent of the currently married persons were victims of child marriage. Close on the heels is Madhya Pradesh at 26 per cent, followed by Uttar Pradesh and Haryana at 21 per cent...

-The Hindu Surveys conducted by activists estimate that there are over 1.2 million manual scavengers in India As numbers become data and move from being just a random rearrangement of 0-9, they speak volumes about peoples, nations, and their objectives. They form the basis of government policies, and have the intrinsic potential to change lives, correct historical wrongs and national trajectories. The last election results, we were told, were a message from ‘Aspirational...

-CaravanMagazine.in Bina Agarwal is a Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the University of Manchester, UK. Prior to this, she was the Director and Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University. Agarwal has written extensively on land, livelihoods and property rights; environment and development; the political economy of gender; poverty and inequality; legal change; and agriculture and technological transformation. Her best known work is A Field...

-Frontline The NCRB data used to justify the new law bringing down the age of responsibility for criminal action are open to interpretation. Often the same data can be interpreted in different ways to arrive at contrary conclusions. Portions of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data have been quoted ad nauseam by the government and the media alike to justify the changes made in the juvenile justice law. Experts from the...

-Hindustan Times The prospect of the youngest offender in the Delhi gang rape case walking free has stirred public opinion in recent weeks, with a string of protests and the parents of the victim urging authorities to detain the convict. Parliament is expected to take up amendments to the juvenile justice bill on Tuesday, a rare political response to public anger over the case, but the outrage has helped mask two crucial...