Corruption in India has attained humongous proportions despite continual but largely erratic movements since independence to tackle this menace. Shankar Jaganathan ponders on whether the recent betting scandal in cricket could catalyse an effective outcome in the fight against political corruption.

In Attapady block of Kerala's Palakkad district, illicit liquor is taking a heavy toll among the adviasis. Addiction to the brew has led to many deaths and suicides, even as a complacent and complicit administration looks on. M Suchitra reports.

Some sections in Kerala are already blaming the land reform law for hurting big industrial projects; meanwhile around 10,000 dalit and adivasi families are locked in a struggle for the original entitlements that never came, reports M Suchitra.

Passed in 2005, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act could have been an effective tool to ensure redress for victims of domestic abuse. But an understaffed implementation body has made it yet another selective and often toothless piece of legislation, finds Puja Awasthi.

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.

Can a legal ruling, never mind if it is from the apex court of the country, change the socio-cultural and psychological ramifications of unwed motherhood in India? Shoma A Chatterji probes deeper to find out the social and sociological impact of the ruling on the family.

The Chingrajpara slum in Bilaspur, Chhatisgarh is the city's largest of nearly 50 slums. Why are the children not in school? Why is a schooling cost of Rs 318 per year per child a tall figure for poor parents? Ashima Sood chronicles the lived experience of poverty from her visits of 2002 and 2003.

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

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

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.

Over 230,000 people in hundreds of villages to be displaced, tens of thousands of acres submerged, wildlife and forest lands inundated - the Polavaram project will repeat the great tragedy of displacement and environmental damage that has marked so many other projects in the country. R Uma Maheshwari reports.

A moratorium on loan recoveries is supposed to bring distressed farmers a bit of relief. But in the Parakal region of Warangal district, the Andhra Pradesh government's directive has taken farmers from the fire to the frying pan, says one farmer. Kondal Rao has more.

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.

Drawing upon the growing incidence of child abandonment in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, Tejaswini Pagadala looks at the phenomenon through a broader lens and explores possible ways, including adoption, to mitigate the evil.

Shivani Chaudhry

In trying to present themselves as democratic, respectable, and - most implausible of all - intellectual, the BJP allied themselves with the memory and legacy of a man they once bitterly opposed. Ramachandra Guha predicts a renaissance of rememberance of India's first Prime Minster.

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.

12 March this year marks the 75th anniversary of Gandhi's famous 1930 march from Sabarmati to Dandi to break the exploitative salt tax law. With the ruling Congress party staking a claim to the legacy of the march, Venu Madhav Govindu comments on its true symbolism.

India is unilaterally opening its doors to imports of wheat at a time when several contentious issues remain to be settled in the World Trade Organisation. This deliberate step up will result in serious consequences, and weaken the country's bargaining power, writes Ashok B Sharma.

The Constitution has clearly drawn the Lakshman Rekha for both the Legislature and the Judiciary to maintain their independence in their respective functioning. But what happens when either judges or lawmakers cross this line? Pradeep Baisakh presents an overview of that much maligned term, judicial over-reach.

Policies of privatisation and globalisation are changing not only economies but societies and cultures. At their core is the fight of ideas, and these will be expressed in words. What these words are, and what they mean, therefore, matters greatly, writes Shripad Dharmadhikary.

The World Bank's much touted 'knowledge' products are coming out of a flawed process. The bank hires highly paid consultants who are mostly directed through a system of incentives towards arriving at a pre-determined policy consensus. Information and experiences that run counter to the consensus are ignored. Shripad Dharmadhikary on the implications for India.

"Power to the people" will not be ushered in by the microchip or hydrogen battery, but by a redistribution of wealth. Darryl D'Monte fears the celebrated New York Times columnist may be misplacing his faith.

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.

Can we tap into the power of crowds and popular fashion to address persistent poverty? And what would such an effort look like, wonders Gijs Spoor.

The issue of parental authority to resort to corporeal punishment on children is a matter still hotly debated in large sections of our society writes Shankar Jaganathan.

The Age of Consent is a clarion call to implausible action. But maybe that's the point - to urge that we ask why the obviously good outcomes seem so unlikely.

The Budhan Theatre Group has become the nexus for a movement to change attitudes towards denotified tribes both within Ahmedabad's Chharanagar community and outside it.

The Gujarat state government appears to have very little planned by way of support for the education of Muslim children. What's more the education department appears to be standing in the way of the embattled community's attempts to help itself. 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.

In the shadow of the Narmada dam, those displaced by the canal once hoped that its water would irrigate their fields. Little did they know how their lives would turn out. Neeta Deshpande reports.

The National Human Rights Commission should investigate Punjab's forced disappearance, says Human Rights Watch

No sane person can accept the immorality of using economic and military superiority to bludgeon inconvenient nations into falling in line, says Kalpana Sharma.

In the passing of Kalpana Chawla, the genuine feeling of loss expressed by so many reveals the thirst amongst the young for role models, says Kalpana Sharma.

There is now a quiet but intense debate within some segments of the corporate sector on the crisis in governance due to communalism, says Rajni Bakshi.

Kalpana Sharma looks at the implications of the Nisha Sharma episode for our society.

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.

We have been taught to remember Tagore as essentially a Bengali, Nehru as a Congressman, and Ambedkar as a Dalit. But their examples remain relevant to many others, says Ramachandra Guha.

The decision to deny Modi entry to the US was inspired, not by abstract ideals of justice, but by hard-nosed realpolitik. But to ensure that no foreign government makes an Indian politician the target of its hypocrisies, we must make sure that the violations that attract foreign scrutiny do not go unpunished by us, says Ramachandra Guha.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 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.

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.