In one of development's pampered districts in Orissa, chamar children are still polishing shoes, some even as they are supposedly schooling. Special economic packages are helping only a little here, and academic performance and serious rehabilitation remain abysmal, finds Ranjan K Panda.

A large development or industrial project, stiff people's protests, takeover of vast tracts of land, widespread environmental and social impacts, and more. All of these realities have manifested themselves in government clearances for the POSCO project in Orissa. Manshi Asher and Kanchi Kohli analyse the current situation.

Thousands of miles away from India, the Norwegian Government's pension fund has recognized what has gone wrong with a global corporation's mining interests in Orissa's Niyamgiri hills. But the decision will be made in the Supreme Court, and things do not look promising, notes Kanchi Kohli.

The Supreme Court acknowledges the indictment of Vedanta's operations in India by the Norwegian Council on Ethics, but its recent verdict appears to let the company off lightly, treating the Indian subsidiary as unrelated to its parent. Kanchi Kohli reports.

Launched after a successful international pledge campaign in 2007, the Bakul children's library in Bhubaneshwar is slowly turning into a node for various kinds of volunteering. Professors, young artists, students, organisers and others have started chipping in. Sailen Routray has more.

Despite many shortcomings in implementation, an array of examples and a government willing to move on public pressure are showing that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is making progress in Orissa. Pradeep Baisakh reports.

The new law's provisions are infusing into the proceedings of the Gram Sabhas a democratic character that they have lacked so far. From a conservation standpoint too, the law is proving to be positive, writes Tushar Dash.

Once-young fighters from Sri Lanka are now mostly family men entrenched in Malkangiri town. The way the one-time, once-brash warriors have woven themselves into the community is touching, writes P Sainath.

Ganjam migrants in Surat send home Rs. 400 crore a year, a fourth of that through the unique Tappawala courier system. But global recession has seen remittances take a hit, writes P Sainath.

Christian dalits and adivasis in Kandhamal district of Orissa live fearfully among their Hindu neighbours more than two years after large-scale riots against members of their faith. Freny Manecksha reports.

Why bother complying with regulations if a committee can decide that it didn't matter much that the law was bypassed? MoEF finds itself on the backfoot, after its experts look away from the law. Kanchi Kohli reports.

The battle between Sterlite Industries and tribal communities over mining in the Niyamgiri hills may not be just over yet, but the most recent Supreme Court judgment empowering the gram sabha has come as a temporary reprieve for the people. Kanchi Kohli reports.

With numerous court cases, regulatory rulings and pending environmental clearances behind it, the South Korean steel major POSCO still persists with its plans in India. Kanchi Kohli looks at the latest in the case and wonders why.

The broad-based Community Based Functional Literacy Campaign launched by the State Resource Centre of Rayagada, Orissa aims to educate women and drop-out girls in three of the most backward districts of the state. Abhijit Mohanty summarises the key take-aways so far.

Himanshu Upadhyaya examines a CAG audit report to point out the blatant non-compliance of environmental laws largely by the Forest officials.

The media is partisan and the government corrupt. In this environment, the committed reporter has no choice but to go out and investigate with a hidden camera. But such sting operations are not a substitute for investigative reporting; as a result even serious revelations are quickly forgotten, says Arun Sadhu.

As 'limited war' doctrine evolves to 'limited nuclear war', the strategic necessities as well as their implications for the polity must be repeatedly examined, says Firdaus Ahmed.

Sreedevi Jacob says the May 2003 killings at Marad in Kerala could have been avoided.

Firdaus Ahmed on the continuing need to guard against over-zealous security managers.

A delegation of entrepreneurs from Pakistan decided to spend Id in India, exploring opportunities for their businesses and forging friendly ties at the same time. Surekha Sule reports that there are many areas where the strengths of the two nations in global trade can be mutually beneficial.

Among military planners, it is common to devise war games to counter any nuclear attack by enemy states. The theories put forward in such games, however, are not always grounded in reality. The peace community should alertly challenge such thinking, says Firdaus Ahmed.

Mani Shankar Aiyar fails on two counts - his poor arguments for secularism, as well as his scant attention to his party's role in creating the economic conditions for communalism. Ashwin Mahesh reviews Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist.

Now that political alienation has been redressed to some extent by democratic changeovers, the presence of the Army in Kashmir can be more boldly reduced. The coming year is one of many possibilities, but it will be followed by an even more important year, and the opportunities at hand now must not be lost, writes Firdaus Ahmed.

Developments in Manipur seem to indicate that our infrastructure planners are proposing security costs to construction of large dams on the back of strategic risks analysis. This, even though they may not have embraced a sensitivity to undertake geological/ecological risk analysis itself, finds Himanshu Upadhyaya.

A panel discussion at the recent annual meet of the Network of Women in Media, India points to constraints as well as prejudices in media coverage of conflicts. As a result, those working on these stories can only hope that readers themselves will recognise the value of their work. Shoma Chatterji reports.

The furore over the counting of minorities in the armed forces has taken attention away from what such a survey might reveal. Are the minorities adequately represented in the security services? This question too should concern secular-minded citizens, says Firdaus Ahmed.

That Ex Sanghe Shakti concluded in the plains of Punjab without much ado indicates the determination of both India and Pakistan to keep temperatures below the now usual levels of the summer campaign in Kashmir. However, this positive should not cloud the questionable premises of Ex Sanghe Shakti, writes Firdaus Ahmed.

The army may have delivered on its mandate of ensuring the return of an environment more conducive to law and order since more than a decade, in Kashmir. But the recent spate of suicides and fratricides within are showing that the army is under stress, a slide that the political side can and must prevent, says Firdaus Ahmed.

The United Stated-led Global War on Terror is all set to come up to India's doorstep this summer, with Pakistan's move from being a 'frontline state' to becoming a theatre of war. For India, a reflexive anti-Pakistani stance or a fashionable pro-American one are not the only choices, writes Firdaus Ahmed.

Retired Army Chief General Shankar Roychowdhury, writing in a popular security magazine, says India's nuclear doctrine must be revised to cover the additional threat of sponsored nuclear terrorism that could, as part of Pakistan's proxy war, prove to be the 'Future Shock'. Firdaus Ahmed analyses the General's views.

The absence of open conflict between India and Pakistan since both became nuclear states is cited as proof that deterrence works. But there have been unacknowledged conflicts, and just as importantly, a closer look at each instance shows other factors are also at work, writes Firdaus Ahmed.

The most intractable conflicts in South Asia have remained unresolved because of the inflexibility and dogmatism of the contending parties. It is time for them to move beyond self-justification towards acknowledging and embracing the beauty of compromise, writes Ramachandra Guha.

With the government firmly in ostrich mode on issues of internal security, and the external situation appearing more complex than our laid-back approach can handle, India awaits its Abhimanyu, writes Firdaus Ahmed.

A future government that is without the check of a strong opposition could strike out on a course that is markedly divergent from India's past record of abstinence from geo-political conflicts, writes Firdaus Ahmed.

Plenty of criticism has been levelled at excess use of force and abuse of human rights by the Army in Manipur. And yet, with much infighting and corruption, insurgents themselves have lost the moral high ground, writes Surekha Sule.

For over two months, young Manipuris have boycotted schools and colleges in the state. Two killings in broad daylight in Imphal, including one allegedly custodial, have resulted in the deadlock. Thingnam Anjulika Samom has more.

The calling off of talks between India and Pakistan is being attributed to the latter’s interactions with separatists, with an extended reference to incursions along the LoC. Firdaus Ahmed digs beyond the obvious to highlight the more likely cause behind the move.

With the tension between India-Pakistan rising, Darryl D’Monte reports a recent discussion about the confrontation between these two nuclear states.

The SC recently ruled that a 19-year-old Chandigarh-based mentally retarded girl must be allowed to carry on her pregnancy that was caused by sexual assault. The verdict throws open more questions than it answers, writes Kamayani Bali Mahabal.

The findings of a 2012 Lancet study on death by suicide in India reveal the alarming trend of suicide among those under the age of 29. Comparing the Lancet figures with NCRB data, Shambhu Ghatak highlights the real extent of the problem and identifies some of the key causes.

While any act of self-killing is tragic and worthy of attention, one cannot help wonder why the proportion of male suicides in the country steadily rises with age. Take a look at the stark and sustained picture revealed by the data published by the NCRB.

What happens to the mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives of the Muslim men who are rounded up, rightly or wrongly, for being terrorists? From society to media, none listens to the voices of these women, the results of which could be dangerous finds Puja Awasthi.

Ignored by the government, shunned by society and caught in a time-warp of their own, the nomadic castes and tribes of India are almost "non citizens" of the land. R. Akhileshwari describes the abysmal plight of such people from Andhra Pradesh and highlights the injustice and neglect that they are subject to.

Days before Telangana goes to polls, Venugopalrao Nellutla examines the lack of exuberance and the dilemmas among people in the region, even as they look ahead to statehood and their own government in weeks from now.

With the news increasingly slanted towards the rich, public health takes a back-seat while the concerns of the few are overblown. SARS is the first of many signs in the media of this disparity, says P Sainath.

If public health systems are failing on account of certain causes, the solution should lie in fixing them. However, it appears instead that the state seems to be looking for an escape route from the problems of its own inefficiencies, says C V Madhukar.

The public's perception that government facilities and services are poor has led them to abandon these in favour of private providers. But those are not necessarily better, writes R Balasubramaniam.

Dilip D'Souza on his first-hand observations of low election turnout in Jammu and Kashmir.

When does one stop being a migrant and become just one of the residents? Dilip D'Souza finds that the answer can be quite different, depending on who is giving it: the not-so-new arrivals themselves, or the original inhabitants. But it is the offical view that is most troubling, for it shows how much the migrants' lot is hostage to high office.

Sectarian positioning with an eye upon votes fuelled the controversy over Amarnath land transfer issue. The two main opposition groups made no effort to counter the bogey of Hinduisation of Kashmir, writes Sant Kumar Sharma.