The (word) games we play to avoid dealing with the problems of some of the poorest Indians. It's strange season again in the corridors of planning and power — the run up to the 12th Five-Year Plan. This is when myriad Planning Commission committees review the (somewhat predictable) non-implementation of policies intended to benefit some of the poorest Indians, and recommend changes, only to repeat the exercise five years later. Forgive my...

-The Telegraph   A youth in his early twenties was sent to jail for 10 years by a Delhi court today for burning alive his newly wed 18-year-old wife for dowry, a crime the judge compared with terrorism. “In­laws are turning out to be outlaws perpetrating terrorism which destroys the matrimonial home. The terrorist is dowry and it is spreading tentacles in every possible direction,” district judge Sunita Gupta said while sentencing...

-The Hindu   NCRB's 2009 report puts number of those abducted at 8,945 RTIs filed by an NGO in 2009 show an average of 60,000 children are reported missing annually in the country. However, the National Crime Records Bureau's (NCRB) annual report on Crime in India (2009) puts the number of abducted children at 8,945. Time lapse, insufficient information database and an ineffective tracking system minimises the missing children's chances of coming...

As the world watches peaceful protests of villagers against land acquisition for Posco project in Orissa, a silent protest is brewing in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh against number of small hydro projects in the Saal valley of the district. Since April this year the villagers from eight panchayats have prevented the construction of small dam hydro projects on Hull river, a tributary of river Ravi. “We have been sitting on a...

A war has broken out in some parts of east-central India, especially some regions of the Dandakaranya forests that span across the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh. Reportedly, there are thousands of Maoist guerrillas armed with sophisticated weapons confronting a vast array of paramilitary forces assembled by the government of India. Caught in the crossfire are millions of poor, marginalised and historically isolated adivasis. Their habitat, in which...