-The Hindu The Supreme Court’s unyielding criticism of the government for not eradicating the practice of manual scavenging was the springboard for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to introduce the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012 in the Lok Sabha on September 3. Welcomed as a panacea for the historically iniquitous, caste-ordained practice of manually handling human waste, the new Bill indicates renewed commitment...
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Flunking Atomic Audits-MV Ramana
-Economic and Political Weekly The recent Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and, more broadly, on nuclear safety regulation has highlighted many serious organisational and operational flaws. The report follows on a series of earlier CAG reports that documented cost and time overruns and poor performance at a number of nuclear facilities in the country. On the whole, the CAG reports offer a powerful indictment of...
More »In Defence of Public Education-Manabi Majumdar and Kumar Rana
-Economic and Political weekly Drawing on the research on basic education in West Bengal, this essay argues the case for a much criticised public education system, which needs to be reconsidered as regards its potential as a provider of quality education, even while addressing its many failings. The essay follows an approach, both critical and constructive, that underlines the collective onus of the public in realising the value of the public...
More »Dalits see smallest rise in wages -Sidhartha
-The Times of India Dalits have once again lost out, this time on wages in rural areas. A first-of-its-kind data released by the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) has revealed that during the last eight years - between April, 2004 and March, 2012 - the daily wages of cobblers in rural areas rose by 95%, the worst show among the 17 categories listed by the government's Labour Bureau. The all-India data compiled...
More »Average Indian’s life expectancy up 4.6 years -Kounteya Sinha
-The Times of India An average Indian lived 4.6 years longer in 2008 compared to a decade earlier. An average Indian woman lived three years more than her male counterpart in 2008. While the life expectancy at birth for women was 67.7 years, for men it stood at 64.6 years. This was an increase of 2.5 years and 1.8 years, respectively, when compared to the life expectancy (LE) in 2002. According to the...
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