-The Economic Times Come February 4 and all eateries in the country-from restaurant chains such as KFC and McDonalds to restaurants within hotels like Bukhara and Swagath to even school canteens and corporate cafeterias-will need a 'food business operator' licence from central food authority Food Safety and Standards Authority of India to operate. The authority plans to randomly check food joints across the country after the February 4 deadline for obtaining the...

-Economic and Political Weekly The vigorous public discourse following the recent brutal gang rape and mutilation of the 23-year-old in Delhi is a positive sign but hopefully the demand for quick solutions will not ignore the complexities involved in dealing with all forms of violence against women. There are also other connected issues that require urgent attention including the description of a rape as a "state worse than death", making out...

-The Hindu A recent survey in the Sunderbans region of West Bengal reveals an alarming trend of rising mental health problem among women Everyday, when Badal, a sturdy young man of Sunderbans returns home at dusk, he finds his mother, Kamala, sitting placidly in the verandah, staring into the distance with strangely unseeing eyes. The house, otherwise, is abuzz with activity. His daughter is bringing in the cows, his sons are clamouring...

Four of India's southern states — Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnakata and Kerala — that together constitute 22% of the country's population recorded 42% of suicide deaths in men and 40% of self-inflicted fatalities in women in 2010. Maharashtra and West Bengal together accounted for an additional 15% of suicide deaths. Delhi recorded the lowest suicide rate in the country. In absolute numbers, the most suicide deaths in individuals, aged 15 years...

The row over a cartoon featuring Dalit leader Ambedkar shows a lack of critical thinking in the Indian polity. The cartoon by Shankar Pillai that caused such pandemonium in the Indian Parliament on 11 May 2012 when various Dalit and non-Dalit members demanded its omission from a Class IX textbook was originally published in 1949. It depicts Dalit leader Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar with a whip riding a snail entitled ‘Constitution’...