In recent years, the agricultural growth rate has tended to be lower than the population growth rate. This year, the former is nearing the target of 4%. But we still have a very large percentage of undernourished children, women and men. Poverty and destitution also remain stubborn. The Indian food security enigma rises from the mismatch between the grain mountains and the hungry millions. What are the prospects for ensuring...

Right to Information activist Arun Mane was on Sunday assaulted by unidentified assailants in a village near here, but he escaped with minor injuries, police said. Mr. Mane was attacked with sticks by the group when he went to open his shop at Talegaon Dabhade. The attackers fled the scene when people around raised an alarm, they said. “He has sustained minor injuries and is out of danger,” Superintendent of Police (Rural) Pratap...

As doctor and human rights activist Binayak Sen spends New Year's Day in prison as the only person to be convicted on sedition charges in 2010, it is worth noting that at least five others have also faced the charge over the course of the year. Most of these have been charged for their statements with regard to either the Naxal issue or the Kashmir conflict, according to media watchdog...

The historian Ramachandra Guha has famously described India as a fifty-fifty democracy. But even admirers of India as a functioning democracy will perhaps be forced to admit that certain events in 2010 forced the needle to move beyond fifty against democracy. Threats to democracy and democratic rights have never been as evident, and as powerful, since the dark days of the Emergency in 1975-76 as they were in the course...

For the Indian media, 2010 has been almost Dickensian: it’s been the best of  times, but also possibly the worst. A chief  minister resigning, a Union minister stepping down, senior politicians raided: when was the last time the Indian media could claim so many ‘victories’ in a single year? Yet, just as we were rejoicing at the return of  hard, uncompromising news journalism, along come the Niira Radia tapes to...