-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...

-The Indian Express One of the criticisms of the proposed amendment is that it could, in one stroke, legalise the illegal detention of thousands of underage children by policemen across the country. As a potentially chaotic Rajya Sabha attempts to take up the contentious Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill 2015 — passed by the Lok Sabha and listed for the Rajya Sabha Wednesday — a number of legal...

-The Hindu Urban planning that involves the people and alternative service providers gives far better results than top-down efforts from the government, finds an IIT-M study In Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, the responsibility of managing and maintaining a set of more than 160 community toilets was handed over by the Tiruchirapalli City Corporation to a federation of women self-help groups. A post-programme field survey of 803 households revealed that the community participation had...

-The Hindu The child’s ‘right to be heard’ has been validated by a UN Convention. It’s time to let children decide when and what kind of labour is right. The debate over children working has been raging for centuries, with policies constantly changing to reflect the attitudes of a given time. During the World Wars, children were allowed to work as they were needed in factories and other services. When the soldiers...

-The Hindu Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey speak about the MKSS experience and their campaign for citizen-centric accountability. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan was founded in Bhim on May 1, 1990 with the aim of organising people at the grassroots. By addressing issues of minimum wage and land and reading out official records, thereby exposing the enormous corruption in the system, it mobilised peasants and workers in rural Rajasthan. A dharna held...