-Hindustan Times Bangalore: He wore a crisp white shirt with matching trousers, a golden wristwatch and lots of gold jewellery. And yet, Bhimsen (name changed) hesitated before stepping inside the vast doors of the five-star hotel. A bellhop rushed towards him eagerly and ushered him into the banquet hall where the Dalit Samrakshana Samithi (DSS) was holding a seminar on Monday on BR Ambedkar's contribution to modernising India. The event at the...

Two recent reports show that this social sector scheme has had a causal impact in improving lives, especially for women and children Fourteen million people escaped falling into poverty under the world’s largest anti-poverty programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In 10 years of its existence, the scheme reduced poverty by 32 per cent. Recent data also shows that more women are drawing cash incomes, more children...

-Economic and Political Weekly While insufficient sanitation facilities often get represented in statistics and are reported in the literature on urban infrastructure planning and contested urban spaces, what is often left out is the everyday practice and experience of going to dysfunctional toilets, particularly by women. By analysing the practices and problems associated with toilet use from a phenomenological perspective, this article aims to situate the issue in the everyday lives...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Education ministers and representatives from every state today pressed for revoking the no-detention policy till Class VIII and bringing back the system of performance based promotions that the Right to Education Act had done away with five years ago. The meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) also heard suggestions to make Class X board exams compulsory. Ministers from 19 states and representatives from others said the...

-Deccan Herald Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have earned the ignominy of topping the chart of child marriages in the country. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report depicts a worse picture of south India as five states from the region — Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — together account for almost half of the 280 cases of child marriage in the country. However, the data shows the biggest lacuna...