-Frontline A survey conducted by the Women and Child Development Ministry and UNICEF in 28 States and Delhi presents a dismal picture of crucial maternal and child health indicators. ONE OF the success stories that successive governments at the Centre have regularly narrated is the improvement in maternal and child health indicators, including coverage of various facilities and services that directly or indirectly affect the health and well-being of these cohort...

-The Indian Express To improve the educational status of Scheduled Castes, a fresh understanding of their achievements and challenges is necessary. The concern of scholars, planners and policymakers has been to achieve the goals set in our Constitution: equality, justice and equal opportunity for all. However, in the period after Independence, it was revealed that education was not necessarily linked to social and economic development and the majority of Indians continued...

-The Hindu The State’s recent experience shows that even the worst-governed States can reform their public distribution system and make good use of the National Food Security Act. “In Lalu’s days we had a lal card [BPL card], with Nitish we got coupons, and when Manjhi came we got this new ration card”. This is how Anuj Paswan, a Dalit resident of Tetar village in Gaya district, sees recent changes in Bihar’s...

-The Hindu Law is merely an instrumentality of justice, to deliver it remains in the hands of those vested with the responsibility of implementing them - the police, the courts and the lawyers. Thanks to the documentary India's Daughter by British film-maker Leslee Udwin, the subject of sexual violence and attitudes towards women in India is back in the national headlines. Over two years ago, when the rape of a 23-year-old paramedical...

-The Indian Express It was an interesting discussion. The subject was the recent ordinance promulgated by the government of Rajasthan banning men and women without a Class X certificate from contesting zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections. To contest at the sarpanch level, a candidate will need to have passed Class VIII (Class V in tribal areas). In this state, with a particularly poor record of literacy among women, tribals and...