-The Hindustan Times Human migration is as old as civilisation itself but the magnitude and heterogeneity of migration have seen a phenomenal rise in the last two decades. This story of human populations moving from one end of the world to the other has another leitmotif today: a spurt in migration of women workers.    According to a new report - Migration of Women Workers from South Asia to the Gulf - Indian...

One man's quest to make the right to information the right to action Subhash Chandra Agrawal doesn't drink tea, eat onions, watch movies, listen to music, or want to raise children in this corrupt and polluted world. A cloth merchant from Chandni Chowk, Mr. Agrawal (62) follows the news and files Right to Information (RTI) requests: on the selection criteria for national awards, the assets of judges, the prevalence of bigamy among...

Revised draft water policy allows for subsidy to the poor and in non-commercial farming Public outcry against indiscriminate pricing of water and privatisation of water delivery services has forced the Centre to back off on both counts in its revised draft of the new national water policy, a copy of which is available with The Hindu . The revised draft, that incorporates suggestions from the public as well as state governments, allows...

The Conflict of Interest Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha is a welcome step to control the grey areas in which “public private partnerships” are conducted. AMONG the many things that have proliferated in the economic boom of the brash new India is conflict of interest. So widespread, comprehensive and many-tentacled has this feature become that it is often no longer even recognised to exist, much less to be a...

Political parties across the spectrum get into a tangle over an innocuous cartoon in a school textbook THE textbooks of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) are in the news again. This time, it is not history but political science textbooks that managed to get almost all Members of Parliament on their feet on an emotive issue and for reasons that defied logic. One day before the 60th...