-Hindustan Times Bhopal: Shanti Dhakad of Madhya Pradesh’s Raisen district got married when she was 13. Six years later, her husband died in an accident, forcing the illiterate Dhakad into manual labour to raise her three children. Thousands of kilometres away, Leelabati Shaw, now in her late twenties, was forced to work as a maid in Kolkata after losing her husband when she was 18. "Life is tough for a teenage widow. Tracking...

-The Times of India Despite more access to education, better household amenities and increased incomes, the economic gap between upper castes and dalit and tribal communities continues unchanged over the years, according to latest economic data from the NSSO. A comparison of average monthly expenditure of households belonging to dalit communities with upper caste households showed that in rural areas there was a gap of about 38% in 1999-2000 which changed only...

-Economic and Political Weekly Unlimited growth for prosperity in a fi nite planet is not possible. Ecological economists like Tim Jackson, Peter Victor, and others talk about prosperity without growth and highlight the need for greening the economy on a community scale. Using the "criteria of green economy enterprise" set by Jackson and Victor as a tool, this article looks at khadi production, India's community-level cloth production system. Sumanas Koulagi (k.sumanas@yahoo.in) is...

-The Indian Express There is a strange gap in India - a gap for young people between the ages of 14 and 18. The Right to Education (RTE) Act guarantees free and compulsory education up to the age of 14. The Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 for the care and protection of children (Section 26) prohibits the employment of children below the age of 18. Rough calculations suggest that today, the 14-18 population...

-Outlook Bengaluru: Facing attack over the new Land Acquisition Bill, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said the land records would be "reformed" for farmers' benefit and attacked opposition for "spreading lies" that the government is working against the interests of the farming community. Addressing a public meeting here, he said his government was working to empower the farmers as it realises that the nation cannot make progress till villages develop. Contending that he...