At a time when the Congress-led UPA government has been battling with Team Anna over a comprehensive anti-corruption legislation, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has taken on the government and the judiciary over the transparency issue saying not even a single public authority has been following disclosure norms.  Even six years after the implementation of the Right to Information Act 2005, the final appellate authority for the legislation feels that the...

India is lagging in its effort to reach United Nations Goals to reduce poverty and improve health and sanitation, but has shown significant progress boosting education, treating AIDS and addressing environmental concerns, a U.N. official said. “We are in a race against time with just three years left” to achieve Millennium Development Goals, Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, said last...

Jeeja Ghosh, the disability activist who was forced off a Goa-bound flight because she suffers from cerebral palsy, joins a long list of passengers who have faced such humiliation. “What happened to Jeeja isn’t something new. For every Jeeja case that gets reported in the media, there are 10-15 others that don’t get reported. It is only through heavy fines and exemplary punishment that one can ensure that these incidents are...

While pressure is mounting on the state government to declare the Sathyamangalam Wildlife Sanctuary as a tiger reserve, there is mounting resentment among tribals living on the forest fringes, against attempts of the forest department to curb access to the jungles to collect forest produce and graze cattle. Forest officials have already directed them to sell their cattle and look for alternative means of livelihood.  Irked by the move, over 10,000...

Historians tell us of the colonial era stories of miserable conditions of workers, even bonded labour, in tea plantations of eastern India. However, the situation improved after independence. In the past few decades the tea industry has made steady profits even in worst years of economic downturn. And that is why reports of starvation deaths in tea plantations of Assam are so shocking. An Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report says that...