-The Hindu Hyderabad-based Balamitra Foundation’s project of distributing menstrual hygiene kits in Andhra’s Billalavalasa village has started conversations on a topic often brushed under the carpet When Sravani got her first period, she had no idea how to manage the bleeding since nobody had spoken about it to her. Even her mother was hush-hush about it. She ended up using cloth and missing a week’s class at school. Several girls like her...

-The Hindu It is time for the judiciary to step in and enforce the diktats it had passed in 2006 Police brutality in recent months has turned quotidian. The thrashing of a Dalit Ahirwar couple by the police in Guna district of Madhya Pradesh on July 14 was very distressing. But for the media coverage, the incident would have gone unnoticed. The District Collector and the Superintendent of Police have been transferred...

-Livemint.com Women do the majority of unpaid work, but other divisions also affect how Indians spend their day, official data shows Caste, class and geographic location determine how Indians spend the hours in a day - how much paid work they can do, how much unpaid work they must do, and how much leisure time they have. The first ‘Time Use’ Survey conducted by the government in 20 years shows the strong...

-The Hindu India is ignoring the necessity for strong capacity building of the many NGOs engaged in educational improvement For about three decades now, a large number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are intensively engaged in the task of improving elementary education in the country. A paper in the Economic & Political Weekly of May 2005, titled How Large Is India’s Non-Profit Sector?, estimates about three million paid workers in the voluntary sector...

-The Hindu Analysis of NFHS-4 data finds skewed distribution of BPL cards that provide access to various welfare schemes, including food ration A first-ever study on the linkages between the availability of PDS (public distribution system) ration and the prevalence of malnutrition finds that the poorest households most in need of free food grains are often left out of the scheme. The study is authored by Basant K. Panda, Sanjay K. Mohanty, Itishree...