-The Indian Express Rural families in low income states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal depend far less on ration shops for wheat and rice than the national average. In Bihar, less than 12 per cent of the rural population uses ration shops to buy rice, and in West Bengal, less than 6 per cent of rice consumed by rural families is bought from these shops, data from five-yearly...

-The Hindu MGNREGA records manipulated; workers’ wages siphoned off from accounts Rankikalan (Jharkhand): At noon on Tuesday last, a dozen men gathered on the banks of the Auranga near Rankikalan village in Latehar district. As they performed the dashmirites, the wailing from the huts in the village continued. Bhuiatoli village had lost 23 men, women and children when the truck in which they were returning to the village after working on landlords’...

-The Hindu Although Ashis Nandy has explained the context in which he made his corruption remark, the furious pace of TV and Internet does not allow space for a re-evaluation As I watched the clip of Ashis Nandy, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, belligerently asserting that most of the corruption in India was the work of the Scheduled Castes (SC), the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), I thought...

-The Hindu The Ministry of Human Resource Development recently informed Parliament, that 12 States in the country could not meet the demand for professionally qualified teachers. Moreover, there are more than 8.7 lakh teachers in the country who do not have the necessary training to perform their role. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the independent annual study by theASER Centre into schooling outcomes in rural India has found a...

-The Indian Express It is very difficult to try and be a rational voice in the cacophony of cries for revenge and retribution on the alleged perpetrators of the ghastly crime that was committed on the night of December 16. I am equally ashamed, outraged and shocked that an incident like this could take place in the heart of India, which gave birth to a Mahatma Gandhi, a Gautam Buddha, a...