-IANS TISSA, Himachal Pradesh: When a right to information (RTI) activist in Himachal Pradesh exposed MISuse of public funds some years back, he did not expect that his fight for truth would expose him and his family to threats and social boycott. Manjur Mohammed, 26, who hails from remote Naila village in the Muslim-dominated Kalhel panchayat of Tissa block of Chamba district, has been facing the wrath of his fellow villagers....
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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 »Sunny future -Sujay Mehdudia
-The Hindu As a sun-swept country, India should have been a pioneer in the use of solar power with a photovoltaic panel on every roof. Good policy can help make up for lost time. Solar is the most secure of all energy sources, since it is abundantly available in India. With crippling electricity shortages, the price of electricity traded internally touched Rs. 7 a unit for base loads and Rs. 8.50 during...
More »Good tech getting better -Vasudha Venugopal
-The Hindu Researchers at IIT-Madras have developed a hybrid solar-powered desalination plant that can serve areas suffering from severe drinking water shortage but have sea or brackish ground water. A solar photovoltaic panel is dovetailed to a power grid or a backup diesel generator that will power up during periods of weak sunshine and at night and keep producing water through a reverse osmosis plant. When the sun shines, the RO...
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