-IndiaSpend.com It was raining heavily last monsoon when Heerabai’s youngest child, Seshkumari, 4, collapsed with a fever. The family could only watch helplessly as her temperature soared and she turned delirious late night. The nearest primary health centre for Pachkol, Heerabai’s village in Chhindwara district in south-west Madhya Pradesh, is 25 km away. And every monsoon, the swollen Bhagbhel river floods the road linking the village to the health centre. If you...

-The Indian Express While crimes against Dalits are increasing, the state has time and again let them down, with little action against the perpetrators. Atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are a regular feature of the caste-based Indian society and distressingly, of late, they have begun increasing. What is ironical is that only recently, the country commemorated the 125th birth anniversary of B .R. Ambedkar, the icon of the...

-TheWire.in Members of nomadic and denotified tribes are required to produce address proof from 1961 to obtain a caste certificates, without which they cannot avail the benefits of government schemes. Chetan Ramchandra Pawar, 23, works as a labourer 125 kms away from Pune in the farms of Sansar village. That is, if he is lucky enough to get work. Pawar, who belongs to the Vadar community – a nomadic tribe – otherwise...

-The Indian Express In the industrial areas of the National Capital Region, life is tied to the assembly line. But even if rarely, workers clear a space for that which seems impossible: thought and contemplation, and even the artistic life. When the whir of engines and the clang of metal against obstinate metal die down, when the neon lights go down in hundreds of sooty factory buildings in Haiderpur, Ashish Kumar opens...

-The Hindu We need to rethink social safety nets in India’s growing economy so that they can also focus on the accidents of life rather than solely on the accidents of birth. Sometimes the grand narratives of the Left and the Right do not seem to have any relationship with the lived experiences of ordinary Indians. For the past two decades, the Left has tried to expand social welfare programmes for the...