-Economic and Political Weekly   A report on the 2013 deliberation of the Kolkata Group at its 10th workshop which focused on healthcare, the status of women and social justice in India. A K Shiva Kumar (akshivakumar@gmail.com) is convener of the Kolkata Group workshops which are organised by Pratichi (India) Trust, the Harvard Global Equity Initiative and UNICEF India. At the 10th annual Kolkata Group workshop in February this year, 40 policymakers, development practitioners,...

-Tehelka.com There are few figures from the adivasi community in India who have made a bigger dent in the collective imagination of the country than Dayamani Barla. The "iron lady of Jharkhand" has been instrumental in articulating adivasi struggles against displacement and deprivation on national and international platforms. Dayamani, who was recently imprisoned in Jharkhand for her involvement in the Nagri people's movement, has won the first Ellen L Lutz Indigenous...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: It's widely known that a month's dose of cancer drugs can cost lakhs, but what isn't common knowledge is that Tata Memorial Hospital's doctors are working on alternatives that could cost less than Rs 1,000 a month. Dubbed the metronomic treatment protocol, it comprises daily consumption of a combination of low-dose medicines that are cheap because they have been around for decades. "There is no need to...

-The Times of India So much has already been written on the food security Bill that there would seem to be no justification for another column on it. Yet, a recent look at some consumption data has convinced me otherwise. How the food security Bill impacts people's lives ultimately depends on the effect it will have on the consumption basket of the beneficiaries. If you believe in serious analysis over flag waving,...

-The Hindu Vina Mazumdar, doyenne of the Indian women's movement, architect of the epochal Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India in post independent India, passed away in a central Delhi hospital on May 30 after a brief illness. In the introduction to her memoirs published by Zubaan in 2010, she described herself as a "women's activist", a "feminist,", a "trouble-maker", but the one she liked best was...