Last summer, about 150 families of Kachan village in Jharkhand’s Palamu district decided to pool funds to repair their only community tube well. A drought, the worst in many years, had dried up two ponds; there were no wells around; and the tube well had been dysfunctional for a year. It took a lot of hardship and one whole month for them to put together what the mechanic had asked...

Sixteen persons were sentenced to death by a Bihar court on Wednesday for their involvement in the Jehanabad carnage of 1997, in which 58 unarmed Dalits were massacred by the Ranbir Sena, a private militia of landlords. Ten others were sentenced to life term and were also slapped with a fine of Rs.31,000 each by Additional District Judge Vijay Prakash Mishra. Fifty-eight Dalits, including 27 women and 16 children, were gunned down...

The government has sought more time to work on the food security bill after Congress chief Sonia Gandhi insisted on a comprehensive legislation to tackle the problem of hunger among India’s poor. An empowered group of ministers had cleared the draft bill last month but reviewed it tonight at Sonia’s insistence and sought more time for deeper study. After the 90-minute meeting of the group, food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar...

For no fault of theirs, the poor have given the government much trouble. Unlike Blacks or Women, two other classes of people chosen often for favours, the poor do not distinguish themselves; and if they are identified by means of external criteria, their characteristics can be faked or forged. The temptation to do so becomes overwhelming when the government gives favours — rations, jobs, places in schools, medical treatment —...

If the ‘Bharat Nirman’ ad campaign marked UPA I, education campaigns will underscore UPA II. The government is set to position both the Right to Education Act that came into effect on April 1 and its ambitious Saakshar Bharat programme as key schemes for the “aam aadmi”. The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry will be rolling out an extensive ad campaign across TV channels, radio stations and newspapers next month,...