Even as the government is contemplating bringing in a new law to deal with the spurt in honour killings, reports by human rights organisations show that cold-blooded murders in the name of saving family pride had been prevalent in many parts of the world. Honour killings have been rampant in orthodox and socially backward groups in many countries including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories, they say....
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A profitable education by Sadhna Saxena
While India’s new Right to Education Act seeks to bring free and compulsory education for all children, it seems to short-change them through an unrealistic vision of the private sector’s involvement. In August 2009, the Right to Education Act was passed in the Indian Parliament with no debate, by the fewer than 60 members who happened to be attending the session that day. Not that the Act was an open-and-shut...
More »Mud for meals: SC damns UP by Samar Halarnkar
Nine of 10 mud-eating children are in the last stage of malnutrition. Eight of 10 people are deprived of every national social-security net and live with starvation and hunger. The average life span is 40 In April, the Hindustan Times revealed acute deprivation in the Uttar Pradesh village of Ganne, part of the former constituency of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Now, a Supreme Court inquiry team that visited the area...
More »PESA: Government's sheathed weapon
In the least remarked upon move by the government to take on the development challenge in left-wing extremist (LWE) areas, Sudha Pillai was elevated to member-secretary of the Planning Commission on the eve of her retirement from the IAS. A topper in her batch, Sudha was initially posted to her home state of Punjab and then moved to Kerala after her marriage to her batchmate, present home secretary Gopal Pillai....
More »Audit shock by Purnima S Tripathi
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,...
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