-Outlook Bhubaneshwar: 'Universal Identity Cards' would be issued to people with disabilities for which a survey would begin next month to ascertain the exact number of disabled people in the country, Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot said today. "The census figure does not provide a clear and proper picture on the actual number of disabled persons. Our ministry has decided to conduct a country-wide survey to identify people...

-IPS News MALKANGIRI (Odisha)- Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India's eastern Odisha state, the Upper Bonda people are considered one of this country's most ancient tribes, having barely altered their lifestyle in over a thousand years. Resistant to contact with the outside world and fiercely skeptical of modern development, this community of under...

-The Times of India RANCHI: Developmental economist Jean Dreze, who has co-authored with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on the issue of famine, led a movement against hunger in Maoist-affected Manika block of Latehar district on Friday. Dreze, who has been working extensively in the state for the past several years, taking up issues like MGNREGA and food security, urged the villagers to call for the effective implementation of the Food Security...

-Down to Earth Blog The performance of nutrition indicators amongst Dalits is improving, it is nowhere near the catch-up pace Does a new government and a strong Prime Minister claiming to hail from the backward caste augur Achche Din for Dalits too? We hope so! But political commitment-or lack of it-has multiple manifestations. In a deeply stratified society like India with entrenched elitism, people from the Scheduled Caste (referred to as Dalits...

-The Hindu   The national discourse is so superficial that it only talks of foreign direct investment, investment allowance, tax sops and the like which are just about a twentieth to a sixth of the national economy. It did not even notice paragraph 102 in the Union budget speech which is about half of India's economy. Commentators see facts hidden in budgets as the "devil's in the detail." This presumes that only...