-The Hindu The educational and economic development of Dalits is seen by the backward castes as a challenge to the social order, as recent incidents in Tamil Nadu show On the evening of November 7, 2012, a crowd numbering over 1000 people burst into three Dalit settlements in Dharmapuri, north-western Tamil Nadu, and laid them waste. Over a period of several hours, they looted, smashed and burned. Trees had been felled on...
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Between mass hunger and bursting granaries-Agrima Bhasin
-The Hindu A concern about the Food Security Bill is that legal entitlement has been weakened to mean a passive right to receive whatever the state gives The hallmark of the National Food Security Bill 2011 is that if implemented it will translate into India's first ever right to food legislation, guaranteeing food as a justiciable, legal entitlement to its people. However, in its current form, the Bill fails to evolve a...
More »The responsibility to protect -Anjali Bhardwaj and Shekhar Singh
-The Indian Express A sound whistleblowers' protection law is long awaited. It languishes in Parliament at the system's peril Nandi Singh, a resident of a remote village in Assam, was brutally attacked with axes in September 2012 as a result of a complaint filed by him regarding irregularities in the functioning of fair price shops supplying rations under the public distribution system. He succumbed to his injuries on the way to the...
More »Everyone loves food security -Sunil Jain
-The Indian Express The Congress's bill could end up sponsoring the NDA's campaigns A good thing about the logjam in Parliament, it has to be said, is that it has prevented the ill-advised food security bill from being passed. It would, though, be naive on our part to presume the BJP stalled Parliament - the Congress's blatant abuse of the CBI process was a big reason for this - only because it...
More »Delhi parents use RTE to send kids to a closer school -Shreya Roy Chowdhury
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: To hear the students describe it, the near-7km journey to secondary school in Tughlaqabad is an odyssey beset with a variety of dangers - errant auto-walas, major roads with heavy traffic, sexual harassment. Many opt out. Nearly 1,400 complete fifth grade from two municipal primary schools in I and F2 blocks of Sangam Vihar every year, and, till last session, nearly 500 would drop out...
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