-Livemint.com Going by official statistics, there was a marked increase in the number of crimes committed against women in India in 2013—compared to the previous year, the number of crimes against women increased by a whopping 27%. However, before we jump to the conclusion that the number of crimes against women saw a significant increase in 2013, we need to look at the context. In December 2012, a woman in Delhi was...

-TheWire.in In Gujarat’s Chhota Udaipur, MNREGA has helped villagers increase their earnings, improved connectivity in the area and led to higher farm yields. In the ubiquitous environment of the withdrawal of the welfare state across the globe, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in India stands out as a critical and unique intervention. MNREGA is a social safety net that guarantees 100 days of employment to every rural household...

-The Hindu Anger and frustration dominate discussions on demonetisation at a jan sunwai in Beawar, Rajasthan About five-six hundred people are crowded in and around a small shamiana-covered triangle, like the apex of the letter A. The two arms of the A are busy streets typical of small-town India, a press of pedestrians and two-wheelers punctuated with foraging cows, goats and impatient cars and tempos. Including the shopkeepers and hangers-on across the...

-Oxfam India Blog Hari Bandhu Kanhar (45 years) is a Gond tribal of Jhankarmunda village, district Bolangir, Odisha whose family recently received legal title over his forest land under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. On being asked about the difference of being landless and having a land title, he shared that the biggest difference is that he is not hounded by the fear of being evicted from his land. Narratives such as...

-The Indian Express Ministry cites ‘incomplete data’ as primary reason for low placement numbers. “Kaushal Bharat, Kushal Bharat” — it’s with this slogan that the government had launched its ambitious Skill India Mission in July last year, but the transformation from Kaushal to Kushal seems to be faltering at the last mile. While the government claimed to have trained twenty lakh people under its flagship Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), which works...