The historian Ramachandra Guha has famously described India as a fifty-fifty democracy. But even admirers of India as a functioning democracy will perhaps be forced to admit that certain events in 2010 forced the needle to move beyond fifty against democracy. Threats to democracy and democratic rights have never been as evident, and as powerful, since the dark days of the Emergency in 1975-76 as they were in the course...

Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat on Tuesday called for a time-bound commission to look into the anomalies in scheduling tribal communities, and pointed out that there was a huge undercounting of their number. “It is not just the question of numbers. Their right to a share of national resources is not recognised because of undercounting,” she said at a protest organised by the National Platform for...

Despite its seminal success in beginning a process of addressing issues of poverty, starvation and empowering the poor, the MGNREGA needed a general election to breathe life into it. However, the disproportionate influence of the middle class on social sector policy has led to the same set of pre-election prejudices resurfacing. "What use is the MGNREGA to the economy at large?" asks the businessman, one eye fixed apprehensively on the share...

“Practice of triple talaq discriminatory and unjust towards the wife, against constitutional principles, and contrary to Islam” “The triple talaq is a sword hanging over the heads of married Muslim women,” said Sehba Farooqui, secretary of the Delhi State Unit of the All India Democratic Women's Association, in her introduction to the resolution on the practice of triple talaq passed by the 9th national conference of the organisation on Wednesday....

The UID project has both ‘security' and ‘developmental' dimensions. The former leads to an invasive state; the latter leaves us with a retreating state. Is identity the “missing link” in India's efforts to rise as an “inclusive” economic superpower? Can an identity-linked and technology-based solution change the face of governance in India? Given the euphoria around the Unique Identification (UID) project, one is tempted to believe so. However, a careful look...