Youngsters in certain parts of India today cannot choose their partners. If they still do and the choice violates arbitrary, extra-legal norms set down by caste panchayats, the consequence can be death. Isn't it time we built a popular movement against the medieval practice of honour killings, asks AMMU JOSEPH. A newly-wed bride and her mother-in-law were killed and the groom seriously injured by the girl's relatives in the Tarn...

Biodiversity drives sustainable and climate-resilient farming and the biotechnology industry. Everything should be done to spread bio-literacy for an era of bio-happiness in rural and urban India through the conversion of bio-resources into jobs and income.  Biodiversity provides building blocks for sustainable food, health and livelihood security systems. It is the feedstock for the biotechnology industry and a climate-resilient farming system. Given its importance, a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)...

Population growth seems to have dropped off the public agenda these days. One reason for this is a twist in the old Malthusian argument that sees the rising proportion of persons of working age as a positive for growth. This shift in the age-distribution, it is argued, will stimulate savings as pressure on household and public budgets for the needs of dependent children comes down. Young workers are assumed to...

A social audit on the working of the ban on child labour in the domestic and hospitality sectors reveals a sorry state of affairs.  LIKE any normal child, Illyas from Varanasi, a 13-year-old, wanted to go to a regular school and become an important man some day. But poverty forced him to start working at an eatery for Rs.200 a day so that he could feed his younger siblings. He,...

The government needs to recruit 20 lakh teachers to successfully implement the Right to Education Act, Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said on Monday. The implementation of the Act was a difficult task and the only solution would be to hire teachers even if they did not have the required qualification. “In the course of five years these teachers need to acquire the qualification necessary for the position,” he...