The tribal people of Chhattisgarh are in an extremely dangerous situation, caught as they are between the state forces and the Maoists. THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Soni Sori, an Adivasi schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, was arrested in Delhi on October 4 on charges of acting as a conduit between the Essar group and the Maoists, the former accused of giving “protection money” to the latter. On October 7, she moved the Delhi High Court to...

India has achieved close to universal enrolment. The small proportion of children who are still out of school, the hardest to reach, will be pulled in by the efforts emanating from the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Now we must focus on the next challenge, a massive and less visible one, that of ensuring that every child gets an effective education of good quality. Schools must give children a real...

Jharkhand and the Centre today gave final shape to a plan that aims to improve the lives of 36,000 people living in Saranda forest. At a high-level meeting in Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh’s office, chief minister Arjun Munda discussed a time-bound strategy to implement the Saranda Action Plan. Ramesh said by November 10, Jharkhand would start appointing rozgar sevaks (employment facilitators) for each of the 56 villages in the area....

In Gorakhpur, thousands have become a burden on their poor families Lack of rehabilitation facilities for thousands of children, disabled here after a Japanese encephalitis attack, has made life a burden for them. Already reeling under acute poverty, these children are now an economic burden on their families. The monthly allowance given by the Uttar Pradesh government to the disabled in 2005-06 was abruptly discontinued. “Life is worse than hell for my...

Unsafe. Risky. Dangerous. No adjective may seem vile enough for Ranchi that has topped the district crime chart in Jharkhand with the highest number of murders, rapes and abductions to its credit. According to the 2010 statistics released recently by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), as many as 183 persons were killed, 92 raped and 128 kidnapped in Ranchi last year. Though the police brass find solace in the fact that...