Freedom is important, so is responsibility. In countries like India, the media have a responsibility to fight backward ideas such as casteism and communalism, and help the people fight poverty and other social evils. Freedom of the press and journalistic ethics is an important topic today in India — with the word ‘press' encompassing the electronic media also. There should be a serious discussion on the topic. That discussion should include...

-The Hindu   West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced here on Wednesday her government's decision to increase the number of those to whom rice is being made available at Rs. 2 a kg. “The poor do not get food; we have decided to ensure that all do,” she said while announcing a new scheme of food for the poor after a meeting with the Food and Supplies Minister, Jyotipriya Mallick, and...

-The Telegraph   A World Health Organisation panel’s decision to tag mobile phone radiation as “possibly carcinogenic” has set off one of the most intense debates involving an everyday device that touches the lives of 5 billion people worldwide. The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified electromagnetic radiation in the category of agents such as lead, styrene, even coffee, for which there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in...

The farmers' struggle against land acquisition only shows that from passive forms of protest they have turned to active forms of resistance. THE recent agitation by farmers in Uttar Pradesh against cropland acquisition for non-agricultural purposes is only the latest in a long series of protests by farmers and rural communities, which started a decade ago in different parts of the country and which gathered momentum over the past five...

How the global garment industry is using regressive customs in Tamil Nadu, enabling it to exploit young women workers… Behind the smiling exterior of a fast-growing economy lie the tears and tragedies of women like these workers. Girls. Dowry. The two go together. No matter what you do to separate them, they somehow get conjoined, like twins that have remained connected in one body. We are told this is one of the...