The “committee” promised by the Goalpara administration to clear the paltry sum of Rs 200 to fund midday meals in Belpara primary school in the district has not materialised yet, leaving its 40 students in the lurch. The promise came on June 12, almost a month after the May 13 abduction of the school’s headmaster, Kameshwar Rabha, and another teacher by suspected GNLA militants while they duo were riding back home...

Social protection has seen a sharp focus in the development policy agenda during the past decade. There is also a clear trend for making social protection, as well as food security, “rights-based”, rather than “discretionary”. Yet, no clear consensus has so far emerged concerning many basic design choices and implementation modalities. The Food Security Act 2011, which is now under the consideration of our parliament, is designed to achieve the...

-CNN-IBN Passing through Bulandshahar, a rapidly urbanising district in Uttar Pradesh known for its rustic politics and dairying, this reporter chanced upon a group of farmers sitting in protest outside a newly constructed apartment. The farmers occupied a tent that was erected outside the apartment complex. Their complaint was that they were being coerced to sell land for cheap by private players. "We will get only a measly Rs 20 lakh per...

-The Hindu   Encouraging signs of girls trying to break shackles of outdated customs in Rajasthan Depicting encouraging signals of girls trying to break the shackles of outdated customs, two instances of young women repudiating their childhood marriages in defiance of diktats of the caste elders have come up in Rajasthan. In both the cases, the community members have allegedly threatened the girls' families. Twenty-year-old Rekha Kumari, a resident of Peepar in Jodhpur district,...

A narrow education is making engineers oblivious to the importance of human interaction and raising the cost of even simple tasks My time in South Asia has rewarded me with an enigma: why is engineering so expensive here? Why is it often many times more expensive than in Australia, my home? My search for answers led me to shanty towns on the fringes of mega-cities. We compared an award winning Indian factory...