-Hindustan Times With progressively increasing severity of rising temperatures and rain deficits over two consecutive years – 2014 and 2015, the Great Indian Drought was always coming. The India Meteorological Department, ministry of home affairs, the ministry of water resources, the Ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare office, and the National Disaster Management Authority knew it. The question is, what did we do with this knowledge? Six hundred million of India’s 1.2 billion...

There is a general perception that men are the primary breadwinners and, therefore, they are the ones responsible for fending for their families. However, recently released data from the population Census 2011 shows that around 3.3 crore households in the country are headed by women. In other words, overall there are 13.2 percent female-headed households (See Chart 1). The Census data shows that there are 59.4 lakh single member female-headed...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: The number of untraced children in India has seen a whopping hike of 84 per cent in the last three years according to records of Ministry of Home Affairs. While the total number of untraced children in 2013 was 34,244, in 2015, the figure has jumped up to 62,988. Speaking about the reasons behind so many children remaining untraced, Komal Ganotra, director of policy and advocacy for...

-DNA The draft National Policy on Women is a progressive document advocating legislative changes and gendered approaches. But will other ministries comply? The draft National Policy on Women, released by ministry of women and child development (WCD), is a progressive document in tune with the times but the challenge will be to bridge the gap between policy and implementation. There is considerable emphasis on the conditions of single women, migrants and the...

-The Times of India Ahmedabad: Salt pan workers, fishing community and maldharis in the Little Rann of Kutch (LRK) should be given their respective rights - salt making, fishing and pastoral land grazing. When denied these rights, locals illegally make salt and graze cattle in the forest area, leading to hassles with the forest department, a study commissioned by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has found. During the 2012...