Usha Thiruvengadam, a trained Carnatic vocalist and violin player, has been searching for a job in government-run schools as a music teacher for the past five years. Her struggle for a job despite her disability has earned her a great deal of respect from many of her friends. They also note: “Her husband did not marry her for the assistance. He takes her everywhere.” For many other visually challenged women, trusting...

When psychologists identified the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance — the ability to believe two contradictory things at the same time — they might have been describing the world of international climate change negotiations. Only this month, two authoritative international agencies have pointed out that the world has only a few years left in which to begin taking sufficient action to combat dangerous global warming. The United Nations Environment Programme's Bridging the Emissions...

-The Times of India   Ambedkar Village development minister Ratan Lal Aheerwar has resigned after being indicted by UP Lokayukta of corruption. He was found prima facie guilty of land grabbing and misuse of MLA fund and Bundelkhand development fund. Aheerwal is the fifth UP minister who had to resign after being indicted by Lokayukta in last one year. Panchayati Raj minister and BSP state president Swami Prasad Maurya has been handed over...

-The Telegraph   Stress strikes the pupils of a Murshidabad school every day not because of impenetrable syllabus or unsparing teachers but because they fear the Padma river can rise up and engulf them any minute. All it took for a wave of panic to crash in today was the rattle of tin cans on a truck and an exclamation from a teacher, which triggered a stampede in which 20 children were injured. The...

Watching the recent debate on the poverty line has been a depressing experience. As the debate unfolded, we witnessed self-righteous commentators engaged in a game of one-upmanship to prove that no one was more concerned for the poor than they, electronic media failing in its responsibility to inform the public simple facts and the Planning Commission proving itself incapable of communicating in simple terms the rationale behind its proposal either...