-The Indian Express We have turned our back to the intense food and drinking water distress across states India has transformed spectacularly in innumerable ways in the last two decades. One of the least noted changes is in the way the country — governments, the press and people — respond to drought and food scarcities. Back in the late-1980s, many states across India were reeling under back-to-back droughts for three consecutive years, not...

-The Indian Express Government must ensure the disabilities law reaches out to the most needy The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, (PWDA) completed two decades of existence this month. However, the majority of disabled people is yet to avail the entitlements envisaged under the law. Inaccessible public places, non-accommodative educational institutions and the lack of employment opportunities for the disabled are widespread. Under Section...

-The Hindu Digital infrastructure may not be of much help in addressing governance and development concerns unless it is integrated into the wider structural and institutional reforms Digital India is the flavour of the season, and not without any reason. Digital technologies have permeated into more and more aspects of our private and public life spaces. A lot of us increasingly depend on them to order groceries, book a taxi ride or train...

-IPS News GUNTUR, India: Thirty-seven-year-old Kode Sujatha stands in front of a hut with a palm-thatched roof, surrounded by a group of men shouting angrily and jostling one another for a spot at the front of the crowd. Each of the boatmen, who carry sand mined from a nearby river to the shore every day, wants to be paid before the others.   Sujatha stares hard at them, holds up a piece of paper...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...