Paul Wolfowitz's appointment as the head of the World Bank highlights the undemocratic nature of decision-making at the bank. His presidency will stand as a constant reminder that this institution, which calls on nations to exercise "good governance and democratisation" is run like a medieval monarchy, says George Monbiot.

There is plenty of native intelligence among the people that is very useful in averting and responding to disasters. Planning for disaster management must see this as an asset. The top-down planning and implementation currently in vogue is a poor substitute for community participation, says Videh Upadhyay.

A recent Oxfam report finds that women were, and are, disproportionately higher victims of the tsunami than men. While nature doesn't discriminate, says Kalpana Sharma, society certainly does, and such tragedies should remind us of this, or women will continue to remain invisible in suffering.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) recently suggested that the custom of the man declaring "talaq" at one go and divorcing his wife should be discouraged. It stopped short of drafting further reform to the marriage contract, but this decade is seeing muslim women asserting for more, says Kalpana Sharma.

25 years ago, women's groups in this country fought for and succeeded to some extent in changing rape laws. More recently, one of the most regressive provisions of rape law was nullified. But the public spectacle made out of the rape of a Muzaffarnagar woman by her own father-in-law almost brings us back to square one, says Kalpana Sharma.

One often hears that the country's large population is at the heart of many of its troubles, but doing the numbers doesn't suggest anything of that sort. Still, in an important way, it does have to do with people. Here's how: some of the people don't think the rest of the people are even people, says Ashwin Mahesh.

Hundreds of child marriages are held across Rajasthan with no one stopping them. Tiny boys and girls, some of them asleep and all of them unaware of what is happening, are betrothed to each other. The reality sinks in when the children attain puberty by which time they are told they have no choice. But they do, writes Kalpana Sharma.

Why is it that whenever there is any talk of values, it is women's behaviour, their dress, their attitude that comes into question, even though there are more men than women in India? Societal values and morality should apply to everyone, men and women, says Kalpana Sharma.

It is no coincidence that it is women who have been targetted in the recent controversy over talking about pre-marital sex. If men voiced similar opinion, their remarks would have been overlooked. Women, apparently, should not speak about sex with this level of frankness, says Kalpana Sharma.

Each year, from November 25 to December 10, the United Nations and women's groups around the world draw attention to continuing violence against women in all our societies. In the midst of this, a recent silver lining is an AP bureaucrat acting to clamp down on sex-selective abortion. Kalpana Sharma takes stock.

On December 28, 2005, Air India issued a directive stating that women could henceforth be in-flight supervisors. With this, one of the last vestiges of gender discriminatory practices that the airline has continued to hold on to, has gone. Kalpana Sharma recounts the Maharaja's glacially slow change of heart.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's recent remarks on muslim women and the absence of sanitation at their homes sparked a controversy. Kalpana Sharma says that if the CM really cared, millions of Indian women, with or without a "burqa", would not be "forced to go the jungles."

Although relations between the United States and India have largely been cold or chilly since our independence, briefly in the early 1960s, there was a phase when Washington sensed the possibility of an entente. Ramachandra Guha recalls love and hate between the two nations before the age of George Bush.

Given the lack of any news about dowry deaths, dowry violence or dowry demands, one would have thought that the problem had disappeared. Far from it. In fact, it has become far more entrenched and taken new forms. Dowry is a symptom of a deeper disease that relates to how our society values women, writes Kalpana Sharma.

In the recent impressive gains made by the Indian economy, the OBCs have not benefited proportionately. The recent extension of reservations to elite institutions that are seen as passports to the new economy is therefore logical. But it must still not be excessive, writes Ramachandra Guha.

A young Manipuri wrote to me recently: "I used to believe that media can really help ... But, how do we act when the media go silent?" India's northeastern States come into the news only when there is an election, an atrocity so huge that it cannot be ignored, or a natural disaster, writes Kalpana Sharma.

For her childish prank, domestic 'servant' Sonu was tortured, tied up and left to bleed to death. The police have rounded up her employers, but the story has not ended because it raises questions that all of us, educated, middle-class Indians need to face, writes Kalpana Sharma.

In the vicinity of a private hospital in Patiala district, a 30-ft-deep well yielded 50 dead foetuses, all female. The location of the well near the clinic was not accidental. For, clearly, despite the PNDT Act, the aborting of female foetuses continues virtually unchecked. The 'unacceptable crime' is still flourishing, writes Kalpana Sharma.

The IMF's meeting in Singapore next week is expected to endorse a decision to enhance voting powers for four middle-income countries: China, South Korea, Mexico, and Turkey. For a 184-member body still controlled by seven developed countries, this won't pass for democratisation, says George Monbiot.

We can now celebrate the fact that India is one of the few countries around the world that recognises that domestic violence is a violation of the human rights of women. The law alone is not enough, but it surely strengthens the hand of those who want to establish these rights, says Kalpana Sharma.

Crippling poverty, Naxalism and government bungling may have depressed the lives of poor women in Chhatisgarh, but there is now a shining ray of hope. 60,000 women have become trained community health volunteers and are making an impact, notes Kalpana Sharma.

From newspaper reports, it would appear that some of the focused programmes that the Haryana government launched after the uproar over the low sex ratio are making a difference. Until this is confirmed, we must assuage the genuine fears of people about the girl child, writes Kalpana Sharma.

Indian regionalism has come in three varieties - regionalism properly so called, parochialism, and secessionism. The odd thing about the Ulfa is that it has simultaneously partaken of all varieties, and this is why the common people of Assam have never turned completely against the militants, writes Ramachandra Guha.

The key to understanding information and communication technologies is that their potential for development does not lie in their electronic wizardry, but rather in the information that is communicated by their use, and the subsequent informed actions of citizens. Ashwin Mahesh on the much-touted ICTs.

Once, our universities made a fundamental contribution to the opening of the Indian mind. Now, it is more likely that they will act as a constraint to the further economic and social development of India. Ramachandra Guha notes the four ills that plague India's universities, 150 years after the first three of them were established.

Even the most calculating and hard-hearted woman will not be indifferent to what happens to the child she has birthed. This is the reason that female infanticide remains a phenomenon restricted to only a few areas while sex selective abortions are rampant, writes Kalpana Sharma.

The All India Services Performance Appraisal Rules, 2007 reminds us that women's work is assessed not necessarily by neutral, objective criteria. The gender angle somehow creeps in, directly or indirectly, as IAS officers in Maharashtra can now testify, writes Kalpana Sharma.

Although much amended and bent, the Constitution of India is still a charter for a democratic republic of men and women. But a recent experience made me realise that we are in danger of ceding highly resonant words to the men on our right, writes Ramachandra Guha.

For the sake of millions of voiceless women and marginalised groups, who were given a voice through the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, it is important to challenge laws that attempt to take away grassroots participatory democracy as it has begun to evolve, writes Kalpana Sharma.

The day the Uttar Pradesh election results came in, I was having lunch with a friend in Mumbai. "Mayavati appears to be the Jayalalithaa of the North," he said; the more I thought about it, the more the comparison made sense. Ramachandra Guha lists the similarities between the power women of the North and South.

Goa is, by Indian standards, a prosperous and progressive state. In terms of human development, access to education and healthcare, for example, it ranks almost as high as Kerala. But, as a small and beautiful state, it feels itself peculiarly vulnerable, writes Ramachandra Guha.

Despite their love for and knowledge of Tagore, the intellectuals of Bengal have sold him short. They have provincialised and parochialised Tagore; as a result, this thinker whose ideas extended well beyond Bengal has been turned into a local hero, writes Ramachandra Guha.

Behind the entire media cacophony over Pooja Chauhan is a real story and a real person. The story is a familiar one. Of women, thousands of them, who are harassed over dowry or over the gender of the child they birth, particularly if she turns out to be a girl, writes Kalpana Sharma.

The association of the disenfranchised male with violence is manifest among all religions, and on both sides of the political spectrum. Ramachandra Guha looks at age, sex and class as factors in extremist violence in Bangalore and elsewhere.

The issue of sexual harassment is out in the open and is being discussed. It gives a chance to hundreds of women who have faced situations for which they thought there was no solution to come forward and share their experiences, writes Kalpana Sharma.

How ironical it is that just when Indians are patting themselves on the back on having the richest man in the world in their midst, when the middle classes are celebrating the rising stock market and more, girls are being killed, women are being bought and they have to fear for their lives in many parts of this country, asks Kalpana Sharma.

India's support for the Soviet Union ran counter to the traditions of its own national movement. In the same way, the Indian silence on Burma is in sharp contrast to our consistent support for the democratic opposition in apartheid-era South Africa, says Ramachandra Guha.

The real issues in Bali are not technical or economic. The crisis we face, with climate change, demands a profound philosophical discussion, a reappraisal of who we are and what progress means, writes George Monbiot.

Women like Mukta Jodia, the first recipient of the Chingari Award for Women Against Corporate Crime, are a reminder of the other India, the real India. What triggers their struggles is quite often the lack of transparency, writes Kalpana Sharma.

Bigotry is increasing as there is no strong action against it. If greatly talented Indians cannot safely and honourably practice their craft in our shared homeland, there is little hope for the rest of us, writes Ramachandra Guha.

Even in the not-so-remote parts of Assam, you are constantly reminded of the fact that the entire region remains apart. It is evident in many things - its scenic beauty, its poor connectivity, the stories in the media, and the attitudes of young women here, writes Kalpana Sharma

The press is expected to play a vanguard role in making the legislature and the executive accountable. But is there a mechanism by which we can correct the errors, biases, and malpractices of newspapers and television channels, asks Ramachandra Guha.

The Indian government has a responsibility to understand and respect the people who live on its peripheries; so do the citizens who live in states more keen to count themselves as part of India, writes Ramachandra Guha.

There are many people who believe that women should do only women's work and that they should step out of their homes for paid work only if it is absolutely necessary. But the economy is denting such perceptions, observes Kalpana Sharma.

Why when we want recognition as a nuclear power and a growing economic power, why when we want to boast of our educated and trained manpower, should we not come to grips with the issue of sanitation? Kalpana Sharma on the larger reality.

On the evidence of their respective performances in the trust vote, it must be said that the young Abdullah appears to be better qualified for the post he seeks than the young Gandhi is for the job some think should be his by right of birth, writes Ramachandra Guha.

The Niketa and Harish Mehta case has thrown issues that concern individual choice, ethics, technology and the law. In each instance, there are no clear guidelines, there is nothing that is black and white, writes Kalpana Sharma.

L K Advani's Somnath to Ayodhya yatra in September 1990 promoted discord among different groups just as Jinnah's Direct Action Day in August 1946, which fomented violence between Hindus and Muslims. Yet, comparing Advani to Jinnah may be unfair to the latter, says Ramachandra Guha.

Are there, can there be, Obama-like figures in Indian politics? Ramachandra Guha says Indian political history certainly includes one such person, and one of the modern netas too might be of similar mould.

It is indeed ironic that in a society where motherhood is virtually deified, we pay so little attention to making sure that women don't die in the process of becoming mothers, writes Kalpana Sharma.