-IANS Attempts to push for poll reforms are yet to yield the desired results despite an appeal by the Election Commission to the government, a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by an activist has revealed. A response from the prime minister's office (PMO) to an RTI query indicated that little had been done on barring candidates with Criminal Records from contesting elections, ensuring financial transparency and making public the audited accounts...

-The Indian Express Tribal affairs minister’s letter to states on the Forest Rights Act highlights the problems of implementation For most observers, the Forest Rights Act (FRA) is just another “welfare” law. It is often trotted out as one of those “development measures” that ought to be implemented, but isn’t. Recently, Minister for Tribal Affairs V. Kishore Chandra Deo wrote to state governments, taking them to task for tardy implementation of the...

-Down to Earth Industrial houses use tribals as fronts to amass tribal land in Chhattisgarh Ram Singh’s neighbours tease him by calling him Crorepati Singh. The 40-year-old Gond tribal from Parsada village in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh has hardly any landholding and depends on the government’s employment guarantee schemes to feed his family. But according to official documents, Singh has recently purchased land worth Rs 1.5 crore from a dozen of tribals...

As the government moves to ban employment of child below 18 years in hazardous industries, new data puts the government in a poor light over enforcement of existing provisions. As per the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, employment of children below the age of 14 in hazardous industries is banned. It includes employing them in roadside eateries and as domestic helps.   The ministry of labour in a reply...

The cartoon controversy provides the possibility of interrogating the functioning of the academic system to understand its relationship with the downtrodden masses. A new deliberation is needed in order to make the academic world more sensitive and responsive towards the issues and concerns of the subaltern-oppressed communities. This will be an ethical incentive for the present-day dalit movement in India and can bring greater democratisation to the education system. Harish Wankhede...