 |
Women in Kerala: Perceived empowerment, real disempowerment
Despite Kerala’s higher human development and gender development index, there is still an entrenched patriarchy and reduced space for women’s voices in public and private spaces. John Samuel examines this paradox More... What’s wildlife worth? Ten rupees!Is there any significance in the fact that India’s 1,000-rupee note depicts technological progress and industry, while wildlife and natural resources make it only to our 10-rupee note? After all, says Ashish Kothari, even as our decision-makers pay lip service to nature these seven days of Wildlife Week, they continue to sign away the very habitats that wild plants and animals thrive in More... Poaching fish in Kutch SeaCaught between declining fish yields, the carving of the oceans into exclusive economic zones since the 1980s, frequent inquiries and detention by the Indian maritime security forces after the 26/11 terror attacks and the risk of capture by Pakistani maritime authorities, Gujarat’s 3.5 lakh marine fisher folk are fast losing their traditional livelihoods More... Violence against violence cannot workSince as long ago as 1969, high-level government committees have emphasised that extremist violence of the kind perpetrated by the Maoists is not just a law and order problem but has deeper socio-economic roots. Yet the response of the Indian government has invariably been to meet violence with violence, with expectedly poor results, says K S Subramanian More... Coastal cities need to clean up their actEconomic growth is pushing the original protectors of India’s long coastline out of their homes and livelihoods. The waste generated by this takeover flows into our seas, endangering the ecology and health of millions. Infochange begins a new series on coastal nightmares, examining the extent of the damage and how coastal communities can respond More... Sea change coming…According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels in India are expected to rise at the rate of 2.4 mm a year; in 2050, the total increase will be 38 cm, displacing tens of thousands of people. For nearly 25% of India’s population living along the coast, global warming is a question of survival rather than a scientific theory. City slums are already seeing an influx of climate refugees More... From ‘right to health’ to ‘right to health insurance’?The government’s move to scale up and subsidise community health insurance schemes while doing nothing to improve healthcare service delivery is a flawed strategy. It’s like getting PDS shops to distribute mango kernels and mahua seeds as drought relief instead of foodgrains since the poor survive on these anyway, says Oommen C Kurian More... Trial by fireIn a country where 26% of participants are enrolling for clinical trials just so that they get free or quality healthcare, it is dangerous to allow contract research organisations easy access to patient databases and to offer medicos payment for recruiting patients in trials, says Sandhya Srinivasan More... Apex court rules anew on cruelty by husband and relativesThe Supreme Court does not just decide individual cases -- it lays down the law of the land. A recent ruling in which the apex court held that kicking a woman and threatening her with divorce do not amount to cruelty could set an unhealthy precedent More... The road from droughtBy the time the rabi sowing season for 2009 is over, farming households in the 252 districts declared affected by drought will be further encircled by systems and frameworks over which they have little or no control. This will happen because administrative India is wedded to "area increase and productivity enhancement in targeted districts" as a primary aim. Rural livelihoods are a by-product More... Democracy at the top, bureaucracy at the bottomThe model of district governance in India inherited from the British has lost its relevance, failing to respond to the demands of the people at the bottom, says K S Subramanian in the first of a new series on conflict resolution and governance. The situation could be salvaged by vesting all powers of governance in the elected PRIs at the village, block and district levels More... Numbers, at the cost of quality?After the passage of the Right to Education Bill, elementary school education is now compulsory, and free. But several questions remain, including how children outside the 6-14 age-group will be covered, and how the neighbourhood schooling system will be implemented More... Arrested developmentAs two cases of torture of children working as domestic labour in affluent homes in Mangalore and Mumbai hit the headlines, Nandana Reddy and Kavita Ratna write that bans are not the solution to child labour. Rather than policing the demand for child labour, we must address the reasons why children enter the labour market More... Watching our wastelineEvery year the UK alone chucks 484 million unopened tubs of yoghurt, 1.6 billion untouched apples, bananas worth £370 million and 2.6 billion slices of bread. In his recent book Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, Tristram Stuart documents the extent of waste in the food industry worldwide More... A reprieve for DharaviUrban planners have proposed alternative approaches to Dharavi’s redevelopment, which would view Dharavi as a thriving and functioning urban settlement and not as a slum that needs to be flattened and rebuilt. The October assembly elections may just have given Dharavi the breathing space required to discuss these alternatives, writes Kalpana Sharma More... |
View articles by page |
| Microsites | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Newsletter |
|---|
| Syndicate |
|---|
 |