A report of the National People's Tribunal on the 2008 riots in Kandhamal, Orissa, is out. The report that runs into 197 pages points out that the brutality of the violence falls within the definition of 'torture' under international law, particularly the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.   According to the tribunal, headed by Justice A P Shah, communal forces used religious conversions as an issue for political mobilisation...

-The Hindu In order to reduce mother mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR), the district administration had launched ‘Amma Lalana' (Mother's Nurture) programme of providing better medicare to pregnant women and new born by tracking them for intervention needed through SMS alerts. Initially, the programme was launched in 25 primary health centres by feeding the information of the pregnant women along with her cellular phone number or husband's phone and...

Disability is widely recognized as a cross cutting developmental issue that has relevance to all dimensions of social exclusion. Even today, if we link up disability to developmental issues, it raises serious concerns where people with disabilities are at a double burden of marginalization. Disability has been seen as both the reason for and the consequence of poverty. Trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty, people with disabilities are denied...

The 11th five-year plan promised the nation “inclusive growth”. It marked a departure from the earlier official position that the “benefits of growth” would automatically “trickle down” to the poor, and that if growth was not actually benefiting the poor, then the reason lay in its not being high enough. The 11th plan, by contrast, conceded that the “benefits of growth” did not automatically “trickle down”, but argued that growth...

The Planning Commission has received a sweeping set of recommendations that proposes free health care and medicines for diverse needs to all Indian citizens, irrespective of economic means. Whether or to what extent the proposals — described as “even bigger” than the UPA’s blockbuster job scheme — will be accepted will depend on the political and executive leadership. If the government throws its weight behind the initiative, it will effectively mean...