Numerous laws and rules at the Central as well as State levels are in place to assess the extent of child labour in the country, and to tackle it. Court directives too lend a hand. But CAG reports show that those responsible for carrying out this reform are indifferent to the vast tragedy. Himanshu Upadhyaya reports.

Children in 21st century India are having to deal with a rapidly gathering danger: a degrading environment from pesticides, air pollution and unsafe toys to contaminated rivers and more. Ramesh Menon surveys the troubling landscape.

Possibly, but perhaps not alone. There are plenty of obstacles within our unjust and deeply hierarchical civil society outside of the media. Still, an important connection exists between journalism and the strengthening of civil society: citizenship. The India Together editorial.

The anti-defection law disqualifies legislators who switch allegiances when a government's majority in legislature is threatened, and rightly so. But by stretching it to penalise lawmakers who vote against their party's stand on normal legislative matters, our Constitution has curtailed dissent itself. The India Together editorial.

Sometimes, caste matters only if one expects it to matter. New research suggests that affirmative policies based on caste identity may themselves be the obstacle to reform, rather than tools for achieving it. Tarun Jain reports on a study in UP that appears to confirm this thesis.

Schools are meant for making better citizens out of our children but in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, they are forging and reinforcing caste-bondages instead. Inclusive education seems a far cry in the villages of Dewas, reports Shuriah Niazi.

While Mayawati's projects to build parks and statues have drawn derision in the drawing rooms of the stately homes in the country, the people at her rallies are in awe of her. Her work is Dalit power, they feel and will make her immortal. Kulsum Mustafa has more.

Lalitha Sridhar presents excerpts from an audience interaction with Naomi Ackerman after a performance of Flowers aren't enough, an acclaimed solo play on domestic violence, at Chennai.

Some of the hits of the last few years (post-liberalisation) show a decided nostalgia for a traditional way of life where women are the homemakers, says Shahla Raza.

March 8 remains a valuable vantage point, a time to take stock and look ahead. In fact, significant events over the past year-and-a-half invite fresh thinking on women's issues. We saw "empowered" women, but also saw new victims, notes Mary E John.

Qurratulain Hyder did tremendous justice to her craft by giving a powerful expression to the psychological, emotional and social concerns of women. Humayun Zafar Zaidi writes about the Jnanpith award-winning writer who recently passed away.

The Census thinks that prostitutes are not workers, not because they don't work, but because of traditional views that what they do simply should not be counted as work, writes Shoma Chatterji.

Why is the struggle for women representatives so much harder at the national level? Is every effort merely a pretense, a concession to the few highly educated and aware women voters that ultimately means nothing to the great majority of others? Vaijayanti Gupta notes yet another opportunity thwarted.

Baba Rampal is the most recent in a long line of Indian religious gurus who have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Revathi Siva Kumar looks at a long list of Indian ‘godmen’ over the ages and tries to explain the influence they exert on a mesmerised flock.

For seven-year-old Sandhya and her siblings, totally dependant on their mother who ekes out a living by making beedis, the state government's relief package, announced nearly 18 months ago, is simply not enough. Many more suffer the same fate. P N Venugopal reports.

Over 1400 families who had started living on the rubber plantation of Harrisons & Crossfields -- the Chengara struggle -- will now get land in a deal brokered by the Chief Minister in the presence of the Leader of the Opposition. P N Venugopal takes stock.

Once a medical approach is accepted, its use tends to spread across the population and income groups. We therefore need to start preparing for the advance of personalised medicine, writes Sujatha Byravan

In a society where children are never consulted, parents in an Andhra Pradesh district are looking at their children with new respect. Village children, determined to transform their communities, are writing and producing a Telugu community radio programme, 'Allari Muchchatlu'. Komilla Raote reports.

The Draft Capital Master Plan of Andhra Pradesh, which proposes development of the new capital for the state of Andhra, is of a deep concern. Debadityo Sinha analyses the plan to show what it lacks and why the plan doesn't augur well for the state.

Are quotas the way to redress inequities? A majority of the members of the National Knowledge Commission did not agree, but the UPA government is pressing ahead with its focus on quotas. Two of the NKC's members, Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Andre Beteille, have resigned from the commission.

In India, other states look at Kerala's record of firsts with envy. Dr Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate, has hailed it as a model. But Kerala, caught in a web of paradoxes, is not what it seems, writes Ramesh Menon.

Instead of bothering itself with luxury pens, a truly egalitarian society would focus its attention on the emancipatory possiblities inherent in wielding a pen, write Venu Madhav Govindu and Deepak Malghan.

An ongoing study of school textbooks in four states has found stereotypes and biases in Gujarat's textbooks. The Social Studies textbook for standard five has nine stories on mythology masquerading as history. Deepa A reports.

Following his earlier acclaimed films, Rakesh Sharma has released two new Gujarati documentaries earlier this month. The films -- Sharma has even used RTI to collect government data -- expose unsavoury truths about farmers suicides as well as lower-caste rioters now in prison. Shoma Chatterji reports.

Labour contractors and large landowners continue to employ children, often exposing them to vulnerable situations. Extreme poverty in Rajasthan's tribal districts fuels the practice. Pradeep Baisakh reports.

The famed textile industry of Surat is one of the pillars of Gujarat's industrial success story. What is less known about it is the unfortunate reality of rampant child employment and exploitation that prevails there. Shirish Khare reports.

Less than 50 per cent of girl child births are being registered by parents because of gender bias, says former Census Commissioner Jayant Banthia, speaking at a Panchayats and Child Rights convention recently at New Delhi. Nitin Jugran Bahuguna reports.

An INASAF investigation finds the state grossly indifferent to the health, medical needs, and humane treatment of its prisoners, some of whom haven't even received trials.

The most flexible information dissemination medium ever invented can still be used for the betterment of all, says Subramaniam Vincent.

While arguing that he is doing what he is to make the world more peaceful and stable, in fact George Bush has pushed the world closer to greater conflict and war, says Kalpana Sharma.

Indians continue to believe that we are the moderate nation and that Pakistan is extremist. But sometimes, what we observe isn't what we expect, says Kalpana Sharma.

In any society, the process of change is painful, and in ours, women are being forced to pay the price for this, says Kalpana Sharma.

Calls for the renewal of hundreds of thousands of lapsed insurance policies have begun, reports P Sainath.

The recent controversy over a soldier returning after four years to 'claim' his wife is telling. It illustrates that where women are concerned, everyone has an agenda: the panchayat, the media and the media-consuming middle class says Kalpana Sharma.

Sania is the star today, but there are many more waiting on the horizon, expecting to be noticed and determined to excel. Sania has forced the media, and the country, to sit up and take note. Sania and her "sisters" will not be stopped, says Kalpana Sharma.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The quality of teaching and research in Indian universities has rapidly declined. Surely this has something to do with the manner in which we appoint those at their helm, writes Ramachandra Guha.

A New York judge rules that trying to patent genetic information cannot be permitted - the first serious setback to the genetic technology industry, which will have implications worldwide, writes Sujatha Byravan.

In response to an earlier op-ed by Leo Saldanha on India Together, Prakash Belawadi argues that many of the points raised by Saldanha in particular, may not be so incriminating after all.

The evidence of the pernicious influence of today's mass-media empires is overwhelming. But, lacking a historical consciousness that includes technology, modern India is thoroughly unprepared to tackle the excesses they promote, says Venkatesh R. Iyer.

Seventeen years after the Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot restrict content on radio, it remains impossible for independent news to be aired on radio channels. Navya P K reports.