Muslims, SCs, STs reflect better social indices, closer to national averages Early in the morning, Mohammad Nadeem, a 25-year-old ‘pakka adati’, big wholesaler, at one of Muzaffarnagar’s fruit and vegetable mandis, briskly sets about selling carrots and oranges. As he expertly sifts through sacks of fresh produce, it’s difficult to picture him hawking peanuts by the roadside. But for five years in this bustling western Uttar Pradesh mandi, Nadeem’s store...

Soon, radiologists can work in only two ultrasound facilities at the maximum, and that too within a single district. In a landmark decision to save the girl child, the Union health ministry in the Central Supervisory Board (CSB) meeting of the Pre-conception & Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994, chaired by health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad cleared the proposal. The CSB also passed the recommendation that radiologists will have to clearly specify working...

Labour-starved Kerala looks to the east It’s Their Gulf     There’s an influx of labour into Kerala from Orissa, Assam, Jharkhand and Bengal     Migrants work in building and road construction, plywood industry, brick kilns and in hotels     Skilled workers can earn Rs 500-700 a day     Researchers estimate there are 10 lakh outsiders working in Kerala. No official figures exist. *** On Sundays, the Gandhi Bazaar in Perumbavoor, a small town in Kerala near...

Did you think sex-selection was more prevalent in urban homes? Think Again. An analysis of Census 2011 by the Union health ministry on the eve of the crucial meeting of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act's (PC & PNDT Act) Central Supervisory Board (CSB) has shown that the hideous crime against a girl child has become more prevalent among families in rural India. Consider Delhi, where sex selection was common among...

Till recently, I did not know of a single movie, let alone documentary, which could persuade a viewer to sit under the open sky on an unusually wintry night for over three hours. On Monday night, I was in an audience of about 200 for one such documentary, Jai Bheem Comrade, by activist-filmmaker Anand Patwardhan. It was with much curiosity and anticipation that I went for the first Indian public screening...