Doubts are emerging over whether cash transfers, designed to strengthen local markets, also empower women and change gender roles in emergencies. "Gender relations are quite complex and you cannot assume US$50 is going to change that," Sarah Bailey, research officer at the Humanitarian Policy Group, told IRIN. "You cannot assume targeting women necessarily leads to their empowerment or promotes gender equality." According to a joint report by Oxfam Great Britain and Concern...

Right to information (RTI) activist and Social Worker Hemant Patil Saturday filed a petition in the Bombay High Court alleging irregularities in various trusts run by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare. Patil, president of the Rashtriya Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jana Shakti, has in his public interest litigation (PIL) sought a probe into Hazare's trusts by the Income Tax department. 'It appears that the Hind Swaraj Trust (of Hazare) is not functioning in accordance with...

Death toll in clash between farmers and police rises to four The farmers' agitation in Uttar Pradesh over land acquisition spread to Agra and Aligarh on Sunday. Saturday witnessed clashes between farmers and police at Bhatta-Parsaul village in Greater Noida and the death toll in the violence went up to four on Sunday. Two policemen and a farmer were killed on Saturday. Meanwhile, the State government, in a bid to play...

Endosulfan has started exacting its toll not only in killing the foetus but also in aborting marriage proposals. Parents of brides and grooms insist on blood tests before the marriage to ensure that prospective grooms do not carry endosulfan residues in their blood. A marriage proposal for a girl in Enmakaje grama panchayat from the parents of a groom in Mangalore was aborted as the bride’s party was not prepared to...

The dominant approaches to development have failed the world’s poorest citizens and now the paradigm must change. This is the strong message coming from over 2,000 non-governmental organisations gathered at the civil society forum for the Fourth U.N. Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) in Istanbul, Turkey. Arjun Karki, spokesperson for the forum, told the gathering that the failure to see more LDC countries graduate from this most vulnerable classification...