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.

When malnutrition among children is widespread, the government is slashing funds allocated to the mid day meal scheme that covers most of the vulnerable children. Questioning this approach of the government, E S Ramamurthy started a petition to raise the funding for mid-day meal scheme to cover minimum nutritional needs of a child.

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.

Deccan Development Society (DDS) is transforming the lives of villagers of Zaheerhabad, Telangana. Ashish Kothari visited the place recently and writes about how DDS is successfully working with Dalit farmers towards ecologically sustainable farming, women empowerment and community-led communications.

Telangana’s free registration of plain paper land sale initiative to digitally clean up its land records not only benefits its dispossessed farmers but makes land governance transparent, reports Manipadma Jena.

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.

Two years after Kerala imposed an indefinite ban on endosulfan, there is much suffering in evidence, as well as the fear that the ban may be lifted. Ramesh Menon reports.

Rajasthan is getting ready for a mass installation of fluoride filters on water handpumps in over 23000 villages. The state's drinking water has dangerously high fluoride levels. But the government's reliance on pumps may cause more harm than good, asserts Deepak Malik.

At an international forum earlier this month, government claims of progress on providing water and sanitation were challenged by a number of NGOs. Darryl D'Monte reports.

The central government's decision to reintroduce the ban on non-iodised salt raised a controversy. For a lay person, it is difficult to see which side makes more sense – the one taken by protagonists of the ban, who include India's topmost experts on iodine deficiency, or that of the opponents. Darryl D'Monte looks into the arguments.

For the poor, the choice is often between health care in private systems that are beyond their reach, or death. That is a choice no citizen should be forced to make. To overcome this, the idea of a right to health should foreground policy debates on health care, says Kalpana Sharma.

India needs a strong public health system, but our direction is the opposite. Public spending on health is a mere 0.9% of GDP, and medical care is now the second most common cause of rural family debt. Public ill health, private profit - that's the partnership we are forging, writes P Sainath.

Vultures are nature's scavengers and their effectiveness in disposing off dead cattle has been a critical public health safeguard in India. But with the sub-continent losing 95% of its vulture population in just 15 years, scientists and conservationists have been scrambling to understand why, and propose remedies. Darryl D'Monte has more.

The LDF government's recent payment of compensation to the victims is a great climb down, for this is the first time a Kerala government has conceded that endosulfan was the cause of the unusual and lethal health disorders that spread in Kasargode. Does this mean more for the victims to look forward to? P N Venugopal finds out.

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.

They forage the city, collecting and sorting often hazardous waste when the city sleeps and by day they are gone. Most of them are women and we have no long-term policy in place that looks at their welfare or health, writes Kalpana Sharma.

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.

Medical services are today driven by needs and definitions out of sync with the realities of the masses. In conversation with Pamela Philipose, health activist Imrana Qadeer argues why health should be seen through the prism of the various structural components of society - caste, class and gender.

Success in one initiative to strengthen public schooling can help reach some goals of other initiatives too. The Bal Sansad program in Uttar Pradesh shows how focusing on hygiene is improving attendance too.

Militaristic theories of Gulf War II's implications must not be allowed to sabotage India's national interests, says Firdaus Ahmed .

Mehbooba Mufti speaks of her interest in bringing gender parity to Jammu and Kashmir.

J&K's Permanent Resident (Disqualification) Bill 2004 is now in cold storage, but Mehbooba Mufti and other Kashmiri women appear to have opted for the future character of their State, than their own rights, says Kalpana Sharma.

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.

Can everyone be a victim? Talking to the Kashmiris, the Pandits, and the people in Jammu, Dilip D'Souza finds each community stating its demands for change in very similar themes. Each is certain that true patriotism demands fair consideration of its view, but each also believes itself to be the victim.

Despite the highest legal protections, the population of the chiru continues to decline, raising doubts over enforcement standards for the protection of endangered species. Kanchi Kohli looks ahead to the hearing in the Supreme Court, and hopes the court will affirm the basic premises behind conservation efforts.

Shelter kits developed by Oxfam are being distributed in quake-hit villages in Uri and Tangdhar, but many hurdles have to be overcome to provide these to everyone before the weather turns bitterly cold. Kanchi Kohli finds hopeful but worried villagers and relief workers fighting the odds and the elements.

In the 'village of widows' near the Line of Control, women had become accustomed to living off aid and alms. But in 2001, a group of women, part of Athwaas, decided to try to make things better, and something that was impossible to contemplate even six years ago, has now happened. Ashima Kaul reports.

The Indian liberal can support azadi in Kashmir as the lesser evil, or treat Kashmiri Muslim suffering as the collateral damage of pluralist India. But this is just a choice between two squalid, compromised ideals, writes Mukul Kesavan.

President Obama will raise the Kashmir issue during the PM's visit to the White House. The many views of the problem and its consequences will have to be balanced, writes Firdaus Ahmed

In Kashmir, it seems the only person the Centre is listening to is Omar Abdullah, the man against whom the entire population, including his own party, his bureaucracy, and his police is up in arms, writes Madhu Purnima Kishwar.

The flash flood has brought devastation, and also a warning to Ladakhis not to build indiscriminately, ignoring earlier generations' knowledge about where water was known to flow, writes Dilip D'Souza.

For civil society the task of addressing human rights concerns in a situation where security forces act with impunity is immensely challenging. Still, there are those who are trying. Freny Manecksha reports.

A single parent also caring for her own aged mother, Hanifa Wani died after months of lying paralysed from a spinal injury - the result of security forces firing on her as she fled in panic. Freny Manecksha reports on a family's suffering amidst the violence around them.

Amidst a culture of silence and media inattention, torture is easy to find in the security hot zones of India. A new film bares the ugly truth. Freny Manecksha reports.

The atrocities inflicted upon women in the strife-ridden Valley and the fear and oppression under which they live continuously are poignantly depicted in Ocean of Tears, a documentary reviewed by Shoma A. Chatterji

The Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum of Central Asian & Kargil Trade reconstructs the vibrant past of trade along the historic Silk Route and preserves its rich legacy. Freny Manecksha visits the museum and finds there's more to Kargil than Indo-Pak conflict.

The award by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kishenganga hydroelectric project has several dimensions that could hold important lessons for settling water disputes within the country, says Shripad Dharmadhikary.

For women living along the conflict-ridden borders of Kashmir, caught between cross fire and attempts to check infiltration, the threat of landmines is a constant reality, made worse now by environmental degradation. Chetna Verma’s tales expose their rising vulnerability.

For those who want to stand in solidarity with the people of flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, here are a few options to choose from to make financial contributions.

A female police inspector from J&K, deployed in a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, has recently won a prestigious international award. Yet, her story holds little meaning for fellow women officers back home who fight social stigma, poor pay and gender bias at work every day. Shazia Yousuf reports.

The RTI-on-Wheels, an initiative of Gujarat-based organisation Janpath and the Association for India's Development, has inspired the people of J&K to press for their right to information and to a government that works for them. L S Aravinda reports.

New Delhi concedes a long-standing Bodo demand to set up an independent council for the tribal people, and demands that rebels now disarm.

Jhum, a traditional form of shifting cultivation common in the North-East, was the focus of a recent international meeting in Guwahati. But dilution of the original practice has impacted the ecosystem in some areas. Should jhum persist or perish? Surekha Sule has more.

The Assam government has claimed credit for the rise in pass percentages in high schools in recent years. But, reports Ratna Bharali Talukdar, a closer look at the numbers shows there is still much room for improvement in state-funded education in high schools and colleges.

With large parts of the state experiencing regular conflict between insurgents and security forces, and also between various ethnic groups, children in Assam, many of them forced into relief camps, face the risk of losing all access to education. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

On the streets in Guwahati, there are thousands of children outside the reach of the normal schooling system. Many have run away from their homes, and most must work to make ends meet. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports on the challenges of bringing them into the mainstream.

Hundreds of artisans in Hajo are finding their livelihoods threatened by a local monopoly and other factors that have driven the prices of raw materials very high. The Assam government is intervening to help, but the beneficiaries wish they were consulted more. Ratna Bharali Talukdar writes.

Dramatic erosion of embankments, and continuous siltation threaten to wipe away a large island settlement on the Brahmaputra. Residents unhappy with the government's efforts to stem the erosion are now hoping the island's heritage and ecology will attract more attention. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.