-The Hindu The problem with guardianship in any form, is that it tends to be of a "blanket" form – the denial of all decision-making capabilities. A person with a psychosocial or developmental disability needs her guardian’s permission do a number of things that most people would consider routine: opening a bank account, getting married, managing property, entering into a contract, obtaining insurance, and even making a will. The reason? The enabling...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The Centre's stand against making marital rape a criminal offence saw legal bigwigs take a divided stand. Some like the former Union law minister, the foremost legal mind on criminal law Ram Jethmalani and former Supreme Court judge K T Thomas supported the Centre's view that the law must not be changed, while legal luminary Soli Sorabjee said it was time to make rape within marriage a...

-Tehelka Agrarian policies are proving to be an albatross around the neck of ordinary farmers Amon Singh Kevat, 70, a small farmer in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, spent three long days in April waiting for his harvest to be picked up from an open plot that served as a mandi (procurement centre for agricultural produce). In need of money for a marriage in the family, Kevat didn’t even go home for meals. But...

-IPS News NEW DELHI: Vinita Panikker, 26, considers herself “the world’s most unfortunate woman”. Three years ago, a jealous husband, who suspected her of having an affair with her boss at a software company, poured a whole bottle of hydrochloric acid on her face while she was asleep. The fiery liquid seared her flesh, blighting her face almost entirely while blinding her in one eye. What remains today of a once pretty visage...