Bijayalaxmi Nanda tracks some of the prominent debates surrounding two critical legislations, dealing with gender-biased sex selection and abortion respectively, and points to the commonalities in recommendations made by the apparently contradictory camps.

Decades of struggle and innumerable sacrifices are involved in the long history of women's movement in India. Deepti Priya Mehrotra speaks to some of the exemplary leaders who recall the history of women’s movement and their role in it.

Dr Ilina Sen, well-known social activist and feminist scholar, who currently heads the Department of Women’s Studies in Mahatma Gandhi University, Wardha, Maharashtra speaks in detail to M Suchitra about her husband's trial and her appeal to the Chhatisgarh High Court.

A simple way to claim that everyone affected by dam construction is properly rehabilitated is to make a list of affected persons - and then leave off thousands of them from the list. This has been the history of rehabilitation in the Narmada valley. Himanshu Upadhyaya notes that after many years, the game isn't quite adding up in the courts.

Collective Action for Rural Development (CAFORD) encourages families in Andhra's Prakasam district to keep their children in school.

In Sriramagiri panchayat, a few Kondareddi settlements want nothing to do with the relief and rehabilitation package for those who would be displaced by the Polavaram dam. Fighting off underhand tactics by officials, they are determined to remain in their homes, amidst their culture and its history. R Uma Maheshwari reports.

Actor Chiranjeevi's entry into politics is seen primarily through a caste lens. But what are his party's chances, given the arithmetic and the socio-economic realities of Andhra Pradesh? Veeraiah Konduri takes a look.

Over the next two decades, Indians are going to see an enormous challenge to the value systems of the past, being replaced by the new value systems of globalisation says Ramesh Ramanathan.

Outsourcing may have come to stay, but the conditions in which it is undertaken are surely amenable to change. We might wish to consider questions about the future to which IT/BPO employees are being invited to commit themselves, or how much of the work is cutting-edge, says Lata Mani.

From biogas to solar cookers and improved cookstoves, from agricultural tools to drudgery reducing technologies, most research and development in appropriate technologies has not been backed-up by appropriate market incentives. In contrast, hi-tech is totally market driven, says Sudhirendar Sharma.

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.

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.

Popular ideas of development and management of common resources should be revisited in light of this year's Economics Nobel Prize, given to Prof. Elinor Ostrom, writes Prakash Kashwan.

The rape of 21 women and girls has exposed deep-rooted ethnic divisions as well as fissures in Manipur's civil society. As every tribe has rushed to arm itself, women find themselves embattled between warring groups, and their bodies are the terrain the war is fought on. Linda Chhakchhuak reports.

Acute poverty linked to armed conflict and displacement is a major reason for the growing number of commercial sex workers in Manipur. Drug abuse too is common, further impacting those turning to the world's oldest profession. Thingnam Anjulika Samom reports.

The doors of homes in Rehmat Nagar, Godhra, are opened by children, and sometimes by women. Men are rarely to be seen around. The world outside the settlement refers to them as "POTA families", a description that encapsulates their precarious present and future. Deepa A has more.

In the shadow of India's most controversial dam, men and women struggle to live with dignity. The first in a series on uprootment and survival in the Narmada valley by Neeta Deshpande.

At every turn, the Supreme Court has had two options, and always the justices leaned towards the unconvincing one, says Videh Upadhyay.

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.

Women's oppression will not end only with economic progress, or with education. The problem lies in a deeply disrespectful, even contemptuous, attitude towards women, says Kalpana Sharma.

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

Where other nationalisms insisted on a homogeneity of attitudes and worldviews, this one - from Gandhi, Tagore, Ambedkar, and Nehru - respected and even celebrated the linguistic, cultural and religious diversity of its peoples. Such was their idea of India. Ramachandra Guha continues his series on the great patriots.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A meaningful and enduring bilingualism, embracing both English and the mother tongue, remains out of reach of the vast majority of citizens, writes Ramachandra Guha.

There is an urgent need to make politics belong to the people. A big tweak of the way parties function is needed to ensure this, writes R Balasubramaniam.

Pope Francis’s Encyclical talks about poverty, social inequality, climate change, and other global crises mankind has created and proposes newer ways to resolve them. Ashish Kothari finds the Encyclical lacking in certain aspects but hopes that other religious and political leaders will learn to stand up and speak up like the Pope.

Legislatures around the country are invoking privilege on all sorts of issues, even as the political parties condemn each other's actions to limit press freedom. Sevanti Ninan reports.

Dasu Krishnamoorty examines reporting in the aftermath of Godhra and the subsequent riots in Gujarat.

New ideas and initiatives are emerging from the liaison between the press and the advertisers. Advertorials and advertising features are manifestations of this relationship, says Deepti Mahajan.

Significantly, the copy was less sensational than the headlines in almost all the papers, says Ammu Joseph.

In the immediate aftermath of the 26 December tsunamis, many bloggers visited the affected areas. Their eyewitness accounts brought the horrors of the devastation to distant audiences and were instrumental in garnering widespread relief support, writes Rasika Dhavse.

A study on coverage of developmental issues by regional newspapers in the three newest states of the Union - Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, and Uttaranchal - reveals public as well as media apathy towards the plight of people living in rural areas. Aman Namra reports.

Applying for and getting a license to set up a community radio station in India is convoluted. A new publication offers a step-by-step guide to the entire process along with useful information on how and what to prepare before applying.

The politically motivated appointment of a hardly-known personality to the post of chairperson at the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India has predictably created outrage amongst students and the artist fraternity. Shoma Chatterji looks at the real arguments behind the ongoing debate.

Inspired by a recently released movie, Shoma Chatterji explores how the lipstick and burkha establishes a woman’s identity in public spaces and liberates them in private.

Suman Ghosh's documentary about the Nobel Laureate has not found its way to many screens yet. Nonetheless, it is a noteworthy effort to bring the economist a little closer to the people. Shoma Chatterji reviews the film.

Flickering Angels, a moving documentary on the lives of children of imprisoned parents in West Bengal, helps a child of an illegal immigrant caught in tragic circumstances to go back to her homeland. Shoma A Chatterji dwells on the reformative capacity of cinema.

The recently held Kolkata People’s Film Festival – an offshoot of the founding movement called The Cinema of Resistance – screened powerful documentaries and feature films portraying the struggle and resistance of the marginalised and downtrodden. Shoma Chatterji reports.

Court narrates a compelling story and evolves into a hard-hitting realistic portrayal of the Indian legal system. Shoma Chatterji reviews the film with a deep exploration of all that sets it apart from a regular courtroom drama.

Shoma Chatterji talks about caste and the portrayal of Dalit in Hindi cinema beginning with Bombay Talkies Achhut Kannya (1936) to Bimal Roy’s Sujata (1959) followed by many mainstream films, and the small-budget, low-key ones which have focused on this significant social issue in the past so many years.

Shunyota, a feature film in Bengali, has an all-India resonance that will echo across the country if and when it’s subtitled version will be screened, writes Shoma Chatterji.

4 Tamarinds and Toffees is a delightful and nostalgic film on two women directed by a young and thoughtful director, writes Shoma Chatterji.

The hypocrisy with which the Government of West Bengal acted at Nandigram this March is a serious cause of disillusionment and has opened the door to further radicalisation of the dispossessed. Tanveer Kazi presents the dalit perspective, even as the High Court continues to pass strictures on the state government.

Not many trace their way back to the human tragedy that has given rise to the culture of violence that marks Lalgarh today. The women do not appear scared of any police reaction in response to their protests. Soma Mitra has more.

The death of 14 women in Chhattisgarh following botched sterilisation procedures has rightfully led to furore across the country. But a detailed, historical analysis of family planning as it has evolved, by Shoma A Chatterji, exposes an inherent and sustained gender bias in policy as well as practice.

The concerns of Third World citizens have been routinely overlooked - until now, i.e., as technologies developed for animals are conveniently passed off as adequate for the world's poor as well, says Devinder Sharma.

Removal of agricultural subsidies should be a pre-requisite to further movement on the WTO agricultural negotiations, says Devinder Sharma.