From the time of the PM’s commitment to a ‘Swachh Bharat’ in August 2014, what has changed in the WASH sector in India? Himanshu Upadhyaya shares notes taken as a delegate at the recent India WASH Summit in the capital.

A senior advocate at the Srinagar High Court, Parvez Imroz helped bring together hundreds of Kashmiri families whose members have disappeared in the conflict. The media have not been forthright when reporting about Kashmir, he tells Joe Athialy in this interview, but acknowledges that the support of other people's movements is vital.

Conflict-ridden and marked as 'backward', Karbi Anglong is the first district in the North-East and the fourth in the country to have implemented a quality management system in compliance with the ISO 9001:2000 standard. Ratna Bharali Talukdar has more.

The struggle of Adivasis in Assam is more or less unique. It is the only state in India where, post Independence, adivasis were given Other Backward Class (OBC) status instead of Scheduled Tribe (ST). Sriram Ananthanarayanan says this, and their struggle, warrants an examination.

Recent conservation efforts, linked to the development of alternate livelihood options for local communities along the Brahmaputra, have led to new hope for Assam's state aquatic animal. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

Assam is blessed with more than 150 indigenous ornamental fish species, and these are found in abundance in its natural waters. Now, the government is trying to organise the market for these, and promote new businesses. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

Ban on entry of women into places of worship comes out of deep-seated religious and cultural prejudices. However, a recent development in Western Assam's Barpeta district offers a ray of hope to those in search of justice, reports Teresa Rehman.

Despite years of conflicts and lakhs of people being housed in relief camps, the Assam government is yet to develop a practical policy of responding to the recurring crises. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

Without the opportunity to empower themselves, hope for the nation's handicapped will remain just a four-letter word, says Ashwin Mahesh.

An inspiring account of Malini Chib, disability rights activist and author, who talks about how she got around to developing a strong disability identity that she wants to “celebrate” rather than reject.

Focussed monitoring of the implementation of the Supreme Court's May 2003 directives on the Right-to-food litigation is beginning to pay off, say the campaigners.

If our media can provide regular updates on the stock markets, foreign exchange and bullion rates, weather, pollution, etc., surely they can add a poverty watch? The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty passed on 17 October, and Ammu Joseph scanned the national press from Bangalore.

I could smell Buddham Bai before I could see her. She was covered with layers of clothes once white, laced with the acrid odour of incontinence, of old age. Arpan Tulsyan reports on one woman's poverty and homelessness in the capital.

Several cases of starvation deaths have been reported in Orissa, especially in areas with high tribal populations. Added to this, government inaction in response to the crisis deepens people's woes. Arpan Tulsyan reports.

Xavier's Foundation in Guwahati has come up with the idea of establishing a Clothes Bank for the poor. It estimates that up to 3 million people may have need for its clothes. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

Why is there a huge discrepancy between official calculations of poverty and the alternative figures arrived at by many scholars as well as development agencies, asks Prahlad Shekhawat.

The terrible mid-day meal tragedy claiming innocent lives in Bihar recently is just one in a long line of instances that reveal the abysmal quality of services and chronic breach of trust by the government. Sakuntala Narasimhan voices the angst of the people.

The single-track hawkish focus on reforms-driven growth with utter disregard for the environment, equity and indigenous livelihoods is not only futile, but almost an assault by a few against the majority at the grassroots, writes Ashish Kothari.

Homeless, vulnerable and deprived of any form of social security, street dwellers often provide critical services, helping to sustain themselves and the city. Pushpa Achanta meets some of them in Bengaluru to know more about their existence.

Three million forest dwellers in Odisha are estimated to have been displaced since independence by various industrial and hydro-projects, among which the Upper Indiravati Hydro Project is one. Abhijit Mohanty brings us the story of three tribal settlements uprooted by it.

In conflict-stricken region of Kashmir where women are sheltered and house-bound, it's next to impossible for a woman to be an entrepreneur. Making it possible are women like Arifa, who overcame various challenges to start her own crafts store in Srinagar. Renu Agal meets Arifa to write her inspiring story.

In September 2014, Jammu and Kashmir was ravaged by floods and landslides. A brilliant documentary Kashmir Flood – Let the Vale Rise by Bilal A Jan captures the immediate after-effects of the worst floods in the state in a century that changed almost the entire topography of the state along with the lives of its residents. Shoma Chatterji reviews the film.

Pushpa Achanta writes about the challenges and aspirations of people in Kashmir on Kashmiri Women’s Day of Resistance which is observed today.

Children Affected by HIV/AIDS are facing sustained discrimination and exploitation, finds a new Human Rights Watch report.

HIV-positive children are being thrown out of school in Uttar Pradesh by insensitive teachers and parents alike. Many parents are afraid to let schools know that their children are positive, and the state's machinery has failed to raise any awareness, as a major study has shown. Puja Awasthi sounds the warning bells.

Its demand for water is ever-growing, and its usage wasteful. Using its political and economic power, however, Delhi is quenching its thirst by extracting it from places near and far. Shripad Dharmadhikary reports on the proposed Renuka Dam.

While agreeing with General S Padmanabhan who says in his recent book that "politicisation of the military is a self defeating exercise in a democracy," it is difficult to concede that "greed for fish and loaves of office" is how the politician would corrupt the military establishment and wrench it from its apolitical moorings, writes Firdaus Ahmed.

In the Indian version of suburbanisation, the poor are being forced out of the cities, compelled to pay the price for the creation of the global city. Can we not envisage an inclusive city that caters to the needs of all its citizens, asks Kalpana Sharma.

Ela Bhatt's narrative of SEWA's efforts to bring justice to the lives of poor women reasserts the place of work in human existence. Neeta Deshpande reviews We Are Poor, but So Many.

Gurcharan Das's new book is bound to ride the recent wave of writing by Indians about Indians. The evidence for the core premise of the book, however, is thin. R Rajagopalan reviews India Grows at Night.

Dr Ilina Sen’s association with Chhattisgarh and her deep, empathetic understanding of its society and culture have come lyrically alive in Inside Chhattisgarh: A Political Memoir. Freny Manecksha reviews the book.

A new book tracks down the women who stripped naked 12 years ago to protest against rape and rights abuses under AFSPA. Banamallika Choudhury reviews Mothers of Manipur.

Sunanda Bhat’s award-winning Have You Seen The Arana is deeply relevant in today’s world, as it explores the deep connectedness between man and nature, and the struggle of little-known people to preserve it in the face of many onslaughts. Shoma A Chatterji reviews the film.

The rape of a schizophrenic girl at NIMHANS reveals a wide gap between the rhetoric and reality of mental health care in India.

The poor never follow the rules of good health, we often hear. But the rules, in fact, are no guarantee of safe health in a system that is poorly regulated and unaccountable to its users.

Damaged soil, ill-effects from pesticides, and falling water tables are the legacy of practices that were once thought great for the state. Ramesh Menon reports.

As an alternative to incineration that is known to produce toxic pollutants like dioxins, India is leaning towards pyrolysis for disposal of medical waste. Ratna Singh of New Delhi based Toxics Link on the implications.

Are tax-payer funded programmes for the empowerment of the disabled working? Until very recently, New Delhi has not even had reliable data to plan its programmes. Himanshu Upadhyaya digs into the 2004 Comptroller and Auditor General report.

As new cases of polio are reported in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, health departments scramble to respond quickly. Safia Sircar on a neighbourhood program in Shorpur.

Rural public health care is choked nationwide for a number of reasons. To name two, provisioning of services is very top heavy and many major programmes continue to be conceived and run uncoordinatedly. But Abhijit Das finds promising prospects in the formation of the National Rural Health Mission.

Since 1988, SANCHAR has worked to improve the lives of the disabled in rural West Bengal. And with the increasing resources available by law to assist the handicapped now, SANCHAR is working to make sure panchayats tap into these to help their community. Rina Mukherji reports.

24 June 2005 - Sanu Ghosh was around one and a half years old when a visit to SSKM Hospital in Kolkata to treat an attack of pneumonia saw him diagnosed as a patient of cerebral palsy. But then, his daily wage-earning parents from the rural outskirts of the city could hardly have been expected to arrange for the necessary rehabilitation of their little son. Fortunately for them, the Society for Appropriate Rehabilitation for the Disabled (SANCHAR) traced him out when he was four, and even detected a hip dislocation that nobody had noticed until then. Today, not only does Sanu attend school, but can manage to seat himself there, thanks to a chair designed by SANCHAR. A similar contraption for his home enables him to manage his daily domestic chores. At school, he uses his mouth to hold a pencil to write, and can read and write nearly as well as any child of his age.

Arup Sani was struck with polio at the age of three, resulting in the impairment of his left leg and right hand. The son of daily wage earning parents belonging to Krishnarampur village in South 24-Parganas, Arup was adopted by SANCHAR when seven years old. The provision of calipers and crutches under the government's scheme enabled Arup to attend the village primary school. Arup is now 19, and studying at the higher secondary level. He is not only getting educated, but also teaching three hearing impaired children from the neighbouring village. Besides, Arup is helping a visually challenged child, Mafijul, studying in the second grade, as a writer during the latter's exams.

Despite crores of rupees having been spent in name of tribal and other development programmes in one block of Palakkad district in Kerala, the region suffers from poor access to decent health care. 80 per cent of the adivasi population here are living in abject poverty. M Suchitra reports.

Japanese Encephalitis, the deadly virus infection, is not new to Uttar Pradesh -- the first outbreak took place in 1978, and since then every year. But JE is predictable and self-limiting, giving health authorities clear opportunities to save lives. Still, the 2005 monsoon season has seen more chaotic management and more deaths, says Abhijit Das.

The central government wants to ban the sale of non-iodised salt on grounds of rising iodine deficiency. However, states with notable rise in deficiency are those where a ban has already been in force for the past two decades – the north-eastern states and Uttar Pradesh. P Venu, an Assistant Salt Commissioner in Gujarat, connects the dots.

Recently, there has been renewed stress on compulsory iodisation, with the central government attempting to bring back a national ban on non-iodised salt. But the nature and comprehensiveness of research into iodine deficiency has never made a categorical case for a ban, finds Aparna Pallavi.

While it is nobody's case that iodised salt should be pushed out of the Indian market, what concerns many people's groups is the one-sided way in which iodisation is being imposed on the people of India. Aparna Pallavi concludes a two-part series into New Delhi's interest in banning non-iodised salt.

Of 62 million Indians suffering from fluorosis, more than six million are children and young people. Among these young, nearly 20,000 are in Assam alone, and in Karbi Anglong, well known for its scenic beauty and thick forests, a tenth of the population is afflicted with dental or skeletal fluorosis. Nava Thakuria reports.

India's attitude to condoms and contraception is worrisome at a time when promiscuity has a stamp of approval. Condom manufacturers are pitching pleasure enhancement in their ads, instead of being direct about the protection against AIDS. Charumathi Supraja reports.

The elections in Punjab have unseated the Congress and ushered in the Akali-BJP. But will this change the fortunes of hundreds of cancer-impacted families in the Malwa region? Village after village is plagued by pesticide-linked cancer and rising debt. Umendra Dutt writes about Jajjal, one of them.

The expression 'women at risk' can no longer be used to describe only those engaged in sex work, and that strategies to address women's vulnerability to HIV must therefore take into account their varied risks, writes Sumita Thapar.