Citizens Waited for Basic Services While Public Money Went Unspent, CAG Reports Suggest
Recent reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) found that authorities left large sums allocated for disaster assistance, drinking water, housing, pollution control and railway passenger amenities unspent, raising questions about why parliamentary allocations were not converted into services for citizens.
Storm Could Be Brewing for Officials Across India as CJP Turns Focus to Govt Schools
The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has called on citizens, parents and village leaders nationwide to inspect government schools, film video evidence of missing facilities and submit the findings to the group, an nationwide initiative to begin on India’s Independence Day on August 15. This exercise could put every part of the school system on the spot, from the village panchayat to the education ministry.
Beaten as a Dalit, Denied Protection Because He is Christian
A recent case exposes that the law has wrongly misunderstood that conversion to Christianity or Islam automatically ends the caste discrimination faced by Dalits. Chinthada Anand, a convert to Christianity, was allegedly attacked as a Dalit in Andhra Pradesh, but the Supreme Court ruled that he could not receive the protection under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act because he was no longer legally recognised as a Scheduled Caste. This raises the question of whether the SC/ST Act should ask what religion the victim follows or whether society, including the alleged attackers, treated that person as a Dalit.
Why Governments Feel Threatened by Women Protesters
After the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests ended in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on July 25 following Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, women and girls who had participated publicly and visibly in the agitation became the principal targets of a doxxing and harassment campaign. The campaign reveals that those behind it see women protesters as a threat and want to push them into roles defined by their own patriarchal beliefs.
See Jharkhand Protests From Students’ Perspective, Not Politicians’
While government-job aspirants without party affiliations appear to constitute the principal base of the ongoing protests in Ranchi, Jharkhand, the agitation is not organisationally unified. This distinction is important because attempts by political groups to influence the protests risk diverting attention from young people’s genuine concerns about education, recruitment and institutional reform, and from their attempt to raise these concerns democratically.
As India Grows Older, Its Digital Economy Must Protect Senior Citizens
India’s digital revolution has transformed the way citizens bank, invest, receive pensions and access public services. However, beneath this success story lies a growing vulnerability that deserves far greater attention. Cyber fraud is no longer merely a technology or policing issue; it has become an ageing issue.
Explained: Why Farmers Are Opposing the India-US Trade Agreement
Farmers in Punjab and Haryana have been protesting against a proposed bilateral trade agreement between India and the United States. They are concerned that opening India’s agricultural market further to American products could place millions of Indian farmers at a serious disadvantage because the two agricultural systems are very different in size, costs and government support.
Obesity Rising Alongside Malnutrition in India’s Poor Urban Communities
Obesity could be emerging alongside persistent undernutrition among children in India’s poor urban communities, suggests a long-running study of one such neighbourhood, which found that a rising number of children were overweight or obese by age nine while a larger number were dangerously underweight.
The Psychology of Defending Lynching Convicts in Madhya Pradesh
A judge in Madhya Pradesh who sentenced seven men to life imprisonment for their role in a lynching case is facing a campaign of protests, threats and abuse. It is disturbing that sections of the public have reacted not with concern about the man who was beaten to death by a mob, but with anger that those found guilty of the killing were punished. The reaction points to a particular way of thinking about mob violence, justice and the rule of law, and deserves a psychological explanation.
If a Voter List Error Can Cost a Journalist His Passport, What Could It Cost Millions of Others?
R. Rajagopal, a former editor of The Telegraph, says his passport renewal has been held up after police reported that his name had been deleted from the electoral roll during a recent Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list. Does this mean an exercise built to catch duplicate and inaccurate entries may now begin to decide, in practice, who is a citizen with standing to travel, work or have access to government services?
Why Scientists Think Younger Generations Are Ageing Faster
People born in recent decades are biologically older than their chronological age would suggest, and that gap appears to be widening with each generation, a pattern that a new study links to rising rates of cancer in adults under 55.
Why It’s Legally Correct But Unfair to Say a Passport Doesn’t Prove Citizenship
The Ministry of External Affairs has said that an Indian passport is primarily a travel document and should not be treated as standalone proof of citizenship. While the statement can be legally defended, it appears harsh and potentially unjust to tell citizens that none of their documents could finally protect them from suspicion when the state has treated them as citizens for decades, allowed them to vote, taxed them, issued them identity documents, educated their children, and issued them a passport after official verification.
The Problem With Removing Eggs From Bengal’s Mid-Day Meals
The West Bengal government has appointed the religious organisation ISKCON to provide mid-day meals in schools under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area, replacing eggs with a strictly vegetarian menu that includes items such as paneer, rajma and soybeans, which also contain protein. However, will replacing eggs with a compulsory vegetarian menu improve, maintain or reduce actual nutrition among children from low-income households?
NGOs Can Receive Foreign Funds Only for Government-Approved Purposes
The Union Home Ministry has amended the rules governing how non-governmental organisations receive foreign money, requiring them to select their stated purpose from a government-prescribed list and barring them from proselytising under several categories of activities eligible for registration.
Why Indian Americans Are Liberal in the US and Conservative in India
A person who speaks warmly of democracy or equality may sound principled in general conversation, but the harder test comes when the question concerns the power, safety or identity of that person’s own group. A new study of Indian Americans suggests that many respondents supported more liberal positions when they were thinking about the United States and more conservative positions when they were thinking about India. Muslim Indian Americans were more consistently liberal in both countries.
Why India’s Heat Crisis Falls Hardest on Dalits and Muslims
India’s caste system has long assigned the most physically exposed forms of labour to the communities least able to refuse them. That old arrangement has taken on new urgency as summer temperatures push past the limits of human endurance. Sections of the Muslim community also bear a disproportionate burden during heatwaves because of residential exclusion.
Heard of ‘Hindutva Pop’ Music? Report Maps How It’s Spreading Hate
A genre of Indian music, called “Hindutva pop,” or H-Pop, is being used to vilify and dehumanise Muslim and Christian minorities on four of the world’s largest digital platforms, according to a new report by the U.S.-based research group Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH).
Work From Home, Not AI, Driving Rise in Graduate Unemployment: Study
While public discussion has increasingly focused on generative AI as the force threatening entry-level white-collar jobs, researchers now argue that a much older “technology”, remote work, offers a better explanation for what has happened since the pandemic. They say remote workplaces make it harder to train, supervise and mentor new employees, leading many employers to favour experienced hires instead.
Women Skipped Meals for Days to Feed Their Families During Covid-19 Lockdown: Study
Women in economically precarious households in India went without food for days during Covid-19 lockdowns so children could eat and men could keep working, according to a new study based on interviews in Uttar Pradesh and Goa.
Newsclick FIR a ‘Gross Abuse’ of Legal Process, Delhi High Court Says
The Delhi High Court has quashed a police case and a money laundering investigation against the independent news portal Newsclick, ruling that nothing in the complaint amounted to a crime even if every claim in it were true, and that letting the prosecution continue would be a gross abuse of the process of law.