“She was thrown in the garbage dump outside the village for dogs that ate her. Her only fault — she was the fourth girl born in a poor family,” said Harshinder Kaur, paediatric doctor here, recalling the first time she witnessed discrimination against female infants in Punjab's rural side. “Over a decade ago, I couldn't save that infant and ever since I try to speak for the girls who never...

The provision on non-discrimination under the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 will not apply to private employers, whether individuals, partnerships, proprietary concerns or companies (other than government companies) or unaided schools, the Supreme Court has held. According to Section 47 ‘Non-discrimination in government employment', no establishment shall dispense with, or reduce in rank, an employee who acquires a disability during his service: Provided...

The ministry of rural development is looking to relax its norms so as to be able to extend assistance to the poor segments of the population who are not at present officially classified as living below the poverty line (BPL). It is going to do so by linking eligibility for the only Centrally sponsored scheme investing in skill development of the BPL population to the government’s marquee rural development initiative under...

A PIL in the Supreme Court on Monday made a strong pitch for utilising the elaborate ‘Census 2011’ mechanism to end the 80 long years of speculation about the exact population of other backward classes (OBC), which had been the basis for 27% reservation in jobs and educational institutions. PIL petitioner Kishore Govind Kanhere through counsel D K Garg said that while the Mandal Commission estimated that OBCs constituted 52%...

If you want to understand why the Maoists grow stronger, watch frail Shyam Charan Kisku, 5, as he keeps hunger away by nibbling at a wild berry called Kendu on a hot April afternoon. Kisku and 40-odd children in this scraggly village of mud-and-thatch homes, 180km south-east of Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi, did not get their free lunch this day under the national mid-day meal scheme, the world’s largest cooked-meal programme. Kisku’s mother,...