Several recent reports put India at the bottom when it comes to gender equality. It is time for a clearly-spelt new policy on women and development. SHAILAJA CHANDRA  “By and large the attitude of a man towards his wife is possibly worse than his attitude towards his buffalo.”--Colin Gonzalves, Human Rights Lawyer The World Economic Forum, in a report titled the Global Gender Gap 2009, has quantified the magnitude of gender-based...

India achieved record annual GDP growth, averaging 8.45%, in the five years, 2004-05 to 2008-09. But was this inclusive, and did it benefit the poor masses? We have no data on poverty beyond 2004-05. But the CSO has current data on the economic growth of the states. Historically, the chronically poor states were Orissa plus the BIMARU quartet (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh), of which three have been sub-divided....

For interrogation on the orders of District Superintendent of Police  A tribal woman caught in a “cross fire” last September was allegedly prevented by the Chhattisgarh police from travelling to the capital on Sunday for follow-up treatment to her wounded leg. The woman was injured during an alleged encounter between naxalites and security forces. According to Himanshu Kumar of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA), a local Gandhian group, Sambho Sodi was...

Hundreds of tribals today participated in a rally in Kalinga Nagar industrial complex in Jajpur district to mark the fourth anniversary of the police firing in which 14 tribals had been killed while opposing Tata Steel’s project. Vistapan Virodhi Jana Manch, the organisation spearheading the agitation against the proposed steel plant of the Tatas, held the rally in which representatives of various anti-displacement bodies that have been opposing other industrial projects...

The Centre is veering round to accepting the N C Saxena committee’s methodology for identifying below poverty line (BPL) families through a census but may go in for a crucial change — replace ‘‘Muslim’’ with ‘‘minority’’ for extra weightage on poverty index. The Union rural development ministry is considering minorities as a whole, in place of only Muslims, who are to be given an extra point weightage in BPL identification....