-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Hindu The child’s ‘right to be heard’ has been validated by a UN Convention. It’s time to let children decide when and what kind of labour is right. The debate over children working has been raging for centuries, with policies constantly changing to reflect the attitudes of a given time. During the World Wars, children were allowed to work as they were needed in factories and other services. When the soldiers...

-The Indian Express To improve the educational status of Scheduled Castes, a fresh understanding of their achievements and challenges is necessary. The concern of scholars, planners and policymakers has been to achieve the goals set in our Constitution: equality, justice and equal opportunity for all. However, in the period after Independence, it was revealed that education was not necessarily linked to social and economic development and the majority of Indians continued...

-The Times of India Blog Chouhan and other state leaders must not ban this super-food for growing children from midday meals Many Indian states have started providing eggs with midday meals, either in schools or in anganwadis or both. This is the best thing that has happened for a long time in the field of social policy. Indian children are among the most undernourished in the world. They are starved of protein, vitamins,...

The fourteenth Public Accounts Committee (2014-15) report, submitted to the 16th Lok Sabha in April this year, has found that despite various interim orders issued by the Supreme Court from time to time (based on a writ petition that was filed by People’s Union for Civil Liberties in April, 2001), the Government of India has failed to universalize the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme. This means India has to...