When the entire country celebrates Diwali this year with spectacular fireworks, there will be silence in the homes of dozens of families in Sivakasi, the national fireworks capital. These families have members who have either been killed or grievously injured due to blasts at the firecracker units.  This year alone, 26 people working in the units have lost lives in blasts, while many more were injured. The latest and the fifth...

Maharashtra has been struggling with a declining child sex ratio and is ranked among the five worst states in the country. The reasons are the same as elsewhere: preference for a male child. But in a shocking indicator of how extreme this desire is and how deep-rooted the bias against the girl child can get, scores of families across Maharashtra have simply named their daughters ‘Nakushi’ or ‘Nakusha’—meaning ‘unwanted’ in...

A couple from an Andaman tribe with just 100 members left have had a baby, sending their island hamlet into raptures and delighting anthropologists worried about the group’s extinction. The Onge baby boy born earlier this week to Shri Santosh, 28, and Reetai, 26, is doing fine, officials in the Andamans’ welfare department said today. “Both the mother and child are in good health. With the birth, the Onge population is now...

Why were two tribals and the Essar group framed by the Chhattisgarh police? Why are Soni Sori and Linga Kodopi being systematically silenced? This chilling story of one family reveals more about India's Naxal crisis than any official document can. AS I sit to write this, at 12.20 pm on 4 October 2011, an SMS pops up on my phone: “Soni Sori has been arrested by the Delhi Crime Branch.” The...

-The Business Standard Yes, it will help combat the acute shortage of farm labour, but it goes against the Act’s core principles. Devinder Sharma  Food and agricultural policy analyst The crisis in agriculture has worsened and it is directly proportionate to the spread of MNREGA Isn’t it strange? The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), which was primarily designed as a radical and novel response to combat rural poverty, is actually hitting the very...