Environment
World Bank’s new financing model downplays risks
With the World Bank adopting PforR (Programme for Results) as a new lending instrument, it is virtually abandoning many of its rights protection policies, says Joe Athialy
Women
Gap between law in theory and in praxis
A recent Bombay High Court judgment stating that a daughter ceases to be part of a father’s family on marriage, coupled with reports that a lady judge has listed her daughters as liabilities in her public declaration of assets, underlines just how subjective law is, says Rakesh Shukla
Urban India
Urban development in the 12th Plan: Who's in? Who's out
It seems likely that the 12th Plan will also incorporate the same old gendered assumptions that have effectively invisibilised women -- particularly working class women -- from urban policies in India, writes Kalyani Menon-Sen
Governance
Indian spring?
India will not see the transition that mass protests can impel as long as urban India refuses to see the close connect between rural and urban, and continues to dismiss people's movements in rural areas with a 'who cares?', writes Keya Acharya
Water resources
Water: Economic good or right to life?
The Draft Water Policy 2012 makes all the right noises about keeping livelihood and ecosystem needs as the first priority, but contradicts this by insisting that water must be seen as an ‘economic good’, says Ranjan K Panda
Livelihoods
State, markets and civil society have failed migrant workers
India’s growth story rides on the distress migration of the poor and yet this large and growing segment of our population is completely overlooked, says Rajiv Khandelwal, founder of Aajeevika Bureau. In this interview Khandelwal suggests a possible course of civil society action and state policy for...
Food security
'Depriving the poor in the name of corruption is not a solution': Aruna Roy
Giving all households -- priority and general -- a common entitlement of not less than 25 kg at Rs 3/2/1 for rice/wheat/millets will solve the problem of identifying the poor who deserve to be subsidised under the Food Security Act, says RTI and right to food campaigner Aruna Roy, dismi...
Human rights
No reconciliation without remorse
Ten years after the Gujarat genocide 15 cabinet ministers and 28 IAS\IPS officers have been chargesheeted and Narendra Modi has been summoned by the Special Investigation Team. But, activists say, communal harmony will not be restored until the government and Gujarati society...
Public health
National Vaccine Policy: For industry, not people's health
The new National Vaccine Policy Draft 2011openly favours industry. It provides for advance market commitments for new vaccines, whereby government guarantees a market for the vaccine before it is tested and even if it is not efficacious. Should our vaccine policy focus on the health ...
Freedom of expression
A million tyrannies now
The communal campaigns variously targeting newspapers, magazines, TV channels, books, art, cinema and music -- the entire panoply of cultural production -- today constitute the biggest threat to freedom and democracy in India. And ironically, this new censorship is as much the creation of democracy ...
