-The Times of India   Do not drink your bottle gourd ('lauki' in Hindi, and 'sorakaya' in Telugu) juice if it tastes bitter, it could kill you. This recommendation comes after some investigation by an experts' committee. The death of 59-year-old scientist, Sushil Kumar Saxena, a deputy secretary in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in New Delhi in June 2010, spurred an investigation into the effects of the consumption of...

  Can we agree in this country on a floor of human dignity below which we will not allow any human being to fall? No child, woman or man in this land will sleep hungry. No person shall be forced to sleep under the open sky. No parent shall send their child out to work instead of to school. And no one shall die because they cannot afford the cost of...

The episodes of violence in land acquisition by the government, as witnessed recently in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh and in other states earlier, occur because patterns of violence are inbuilt into the process. Despite a bill pending in Parliament since 2007, there has been little effort by political parties to evolve a consensus on acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. The law as at present and also the provisions...

The West Bengal govt's role as a non-market intermediary in an essentially private land transaction is questionable The West Bengal government has passed a new legislation that transfers the land back to those who refused to accept the compensation that they were offered during the acquisition of their lands for the Tata Nano factory. The Tata group has promptly gone to court claiming that this is an unconstitutional Act. Surely one...

The denial of equality, dignity and autonomy to persons with disabilities lies at the core of disability rights. “Disability need not be an obstacle to success … It is my hope that … this century will mark a turning point for inclusion of people with disabilities in the lives of their societies.” — Professor Stephen Hawking, “Foreword,” World Report on Disability. The inauguration of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of...