India has strongly protested the inclusion of Naxal issue under the realm of an "armed conflict" in a UN report, saying the violence being perpetrated by these groups does not make it a zone of armed conflict as defined by international law. Referring to the recent UN report that deals with 'Children and armed conflicts', India's envoy to UN Hardeep Singh Puri told Security Council that operations of the Maoist...

Depletion of ground water in Punjab and elsewhere cannot continue, says Abhijit Sen  ‘…The agriculture sector remained much more devoid of knowledge than any other…' Necessary to increase investment in research due to scarcity of natural resources At a time when agriculture growth is projected at 5 per cent for 2010-11 based on predictions of a normal monsoon, Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen says that “unless the sector delivers incomes to farmers,...

The PPP model proposed in the Eleventh Plan provides for no government or social control over education. It will lead to the privatisation and commercialisation of education using public funds.  Public-private partnership (PPP) has become a fashionable slogan in new development strategies, particularly over the last couple of decades. It is projected as an innovative idea to tap private resources and to encourage the active participation of the private sector...

More thought needs to be given to the kind of data generated and its practical implications.  Yesterday when the census enumerator visited, I asked him how he felt about the current debate on counting caste in the census: “Not comfortable at all”, he said, “I don't even like asking whether someone is SC/ST or Other, leave alone what their caste is.” But, he added, “caste is an inescapable reality of...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said the government was in favour of amending laws, if need be, to make them more disabled-friendly. He gave this assurance to a delegation of differently-abled persons who met him in Parliament. “The Prime Minister was extremely sympathetic to the demands of the disabled persons and said their demands were genuine,” pointed out CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat, who led the delegation. The Prime Minister interacted...