Has the explosion of media in India been a mixed blessing? With more than 70,000 newspapers and over 500 satellite channels in several languages, Indians are seemingly spoilt for choice and diversity. India is already the biggest newspaper market in the world - over 100 million copies sold each day. Advertising revenues have soared. In the past two decades, the number of channels has grown from one - the dowdy state-owned broadcaster...

Up against a formidable line-up of Army officials who were members of an inquiry panel that ended up taking away her job, a victim of alleged sexual harassment by the principal of an Army Public School in Jaipur came knocking on Defence Minister A.K. Antony's door here on Tuesday seeking justice. She was accompanied by the former MP and Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat and...

The use of tracker technology to zero in on the misuse of diagnostic techniques for sex determination has evoked mixed reactions. ONE of the least discussed issues in the context of the data thrown up by Census 2011 is the worrisome decline in the child sex ratio (CSR) and the not-too-perfect implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, or PCPNDT Act. There is reason to...

The Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka appears to be readying itself for a big fight, and this time it is over the Bhagavad Gita. A statement by Karnataka Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, in which he said that the government was considering introducing the Gita in primary and secondary standards in school has drawn appreciation as well as flak in the state. Vicky Nanjappa reports. The issue had come up...

Indigenous knowledge and farming practices of the region's tribal people recognised for promoting food security and conserving biodiversity Traditional farming systems in India have received a major boost at a time when Indian agriculture is struggling to come to terms with modern technologies. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has accorded the status of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) to the traditional agricultural system being practiced...