Days after chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy wished to see every police station in the state work like a corporate office and the complainant received warmly, a Right to Information (RTI) activist on Friday was nearly subjected to the third degree treatment by inspector K Srinivas Rao after he walked into Kukatpally police station, and only timely intervention by higher-ups saved him from being arrested and slapped with false cases....

Salman Khurshid’s proposal to send law school graduates to remote districts for a year should also benefit those who need free legal aid THE UNION law ministry’s proposal to send students to practice for a year in far-flung districts of the country after finishing studies is an excellent idea — and long overdue. But it can be a progressive move only if it is thought through properly. Ways have to be...

Mother Dairy’s retail model helps farmers but is under pressure from chains Call it the Safal model. For close to 25 years, a large chunk of households in the National Capital Region have had access to fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices—at rates much lower than what the local vegetable and fruits market or the handcart vendor would charge. This was made possible by standing the concept of buying on...

The anti-corruption movement is at the crossroads today. Where do we go from here? We are conscious that a wrong decision at this stage could prove disastrous for the movement. I met Anna in hospital two days back. Most of the time, I found him in deep thought. More than his physical ailment, he is suffering from a deep sense of being cheated. He is deeply hurt. When he went to...

Neglected by conventional banks, low-income women in Satara have set one up themselves. Not long after Chetna Gala Sinha came to the drought-stricken region of Mhaswad in western Maharashtra to marry a farmer and prominent local social activist, she began putting her university degree in finance into action. Local women, she observed, were wearing themselves out in subsistence livelihood such as growing grapes or selling vegetables. In 1992, Chetna, who grew up...