Ruth Manorama started her work with the urban poor in her youth; there has been no turning back ever since. She is the powerful voice of Dalit women today. Is it easy being a Dalit in India? And a woman at that? Have things changed for the better for the Dalits who constitute roughly 16.23 per cent of our population, since the Constitution of India “cast a special responsibility on the...

Sunita Kumari alias Shanti, an active member of the CPI (Maoist) group headed by Akshay Kherwar alleged that senior CPI (Maoist) leaders in the Koel-Shankh zone committee sexually exploit women in their squad. Sunita gave here statement before police in Lohardaga on Friday after she was nabbed by a team comprising of Town police station in-charge Patras Nag, CRPF deputy commandant Pawan Kumar Singh and assistant commandant Suresh Kumar from Hesal...

Over the last few decades thenon-party volunteer organisations have been much more effective in Indian public space and more articulate in policy debates than the traditional Left parties. This essay, while recognising the manifold achievements of these organisations, reflects on the serious limitations of the activities of the voluntary sector and argues that when they usurp certain roles they can become a threat to representative democracy. [Pranab Bardhan (bardhan@econ.berkeley.edu) is at...

A war has broken out in some parts of east-central India, especially some regions of the Dandakaranya forests that span across the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh. Reportedly, there are thousands of Maoist guerrillas armed with sophisticated weapons confronting a vast array of paramilitary forces assembled by the government of India. Caught in the crossfire are millions of poor, marginalised and historically isolated adivasis. Their habitat, in which...

-The Hindu   In the backdrop of suggestions for the Army to fill the breach after the Supreme Court declared ‘Salwa Judum' illegal and the paramilitary forces being repeatedly attacked, Defence Minister A.K. Antony ruled out such a course. However, the Army would react in self-defence if it was attacked, he told journalists here on the sidelines of a seminar on defence acquisition on Tuesday. “We are there not to fight or...