Fourteen-year-old Shafat Ahmad works as a domestic helper in the house of a Srinagar-based government employee in Kashmir. His younger sister embroiders shawls in an unregistered textile venture in her native village of Beeru. "When my father first brought me here, my employer promised to send me to school," Shafat told IPS. Though he is keen to pursue his education, he has yet to attend a single class. The Ahmed siblings' story...

-The Hindustan Times   Nine years after the path-breaking documentary War and Peace, Anand Patwardhan, one of India's controversial Filmmakers, is back with a documentary on Dalit music and activism - Jai Bhim Comrade. Last week, his Film was awarded the Ram Bahadur Trophy for the Best Film at the Film Southasia 2011 festival held at Kathmandu. Fourteen years in the making, the three-hour-and-20 minute-long Film explores the history of Dalit activism...

India's economy may have been booming in recent years but so have the waistlines of those enjoying such dramatic growth. As a result a country more usually associated with famine is facing an unexpected epidemic with 5 per cent of population 60 million people -- now morbidly obese. This has kept bariatric (weight loss) surgeons such as Muffazal Lakdawala busy fitting gastric bands and stitching stomach bypasses for India's political and business...

Arvind Kejriwal is part of the brains trust behind the Anna Hazare movement, which has the potential to further undermine the Delhi order. The engineer-turned-civil servant-turned-RTI activist is now a mass campaigner for the Jan Lokpal bill and plans to expand the movement. He spoke to Saba Naqvi about his ideological convictions, faith in “the people”, dealings with the Aruna Roy-led National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) and...

Do agencies like the Ford Foundation push their own agenda through the NGOs they support? It’s often said, tongue in cheek, that India’s “shadow” government works out of the nondescript, low-slung buildings abutting the Lodhi Garden in Delhi. That’s partly hubris, but it also stems from being close to the centre of power. This rarefied zone houses powerful “cultural” institutions like the India International Centre, as well as a host...