2012

SOME OF THE GREATEST DISPARITIES EXIST IN URBAN AREAS
Urbanisation leaves hundreds of millions of children in cities and towns excluded from vital services, UNICEF warns in The State of the World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World.
Greater urbanization is inevitable. In a few years, the report says, the majority of children will grow up in towns or cities rather than in rural areas. Children born in cities already account for 60 per cent of the increase in urban population. (…)

UNICEF REPRESENTATIVE IN INDIA ON GREAT INEQUITIES, OPPORTUNITIES AND DEPRIVATION IN TOWNS AND CITIES
[The following are excerpts from the speech by Karin Hulshof, the UNICEF Representative in India, at the launch of The State of World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World in New Delhi on February 29, 2012. The document was released by Dr Shanta Sinha, Chairperson, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.]
Today, more than fifty per cent of the world’s population (…)

COMMUNICATION
Amitava Mukherjee in his “West Bengal Notebook” (Mainstream, February 25, 2012) has gone overboard in showering unnecessary praise on Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal CM, when she should have been roundly criticised for being instrumental in not allowing the formal release of Taslima Nasreen’s latest Bengali book, Nirbasan (Exile), at the Kolkata Book Fair. By doing so she has showed, beyond doubt, that she would capitulate before Muslim fanatics in order to maintain her (…)

by T.R. SUBRAMANIAN
China is rapidly developing its capabilities to launch anti-ballistic and anti-satellite missiles (ABMs and ASMs). This could tilt the regional balance in the not-too-distant future thereby endangering India’s security.
Against this backdrop it is imperative for New Delhi to enhance its defence potential and thus safeguard the nation from Beijing’s strategic weapons. It should not be taken in by China’s sweet-talk at the diplomatic level no matter what certain (…)

This week the citizens of India can look at themselves and say: It’s going to be all right. The second freedom struggle—for freedom from corruption—is beginning to show some signs of a satisfactory solution. The rise of public opinion in spontaneous response to Anna Hazare’s campaign was the first sign that our country had the inner strength to stand up to the corrupt. Now the judiciary has helped restore a sense of sobriety and balance to a scene vitiated by wreckless corruption. Not that (…)

There have been several sordid incidents in recent days. Besides the ‘porngate’ in Karnataka, the rape of a young Anglo-Indian lady in Kolkata (that hogged the headlines because of certain remarks by the West Bengal CM considered to be insensitive) and the unprovoked firing by Italian Navy marines killing two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala have caused widespread concern. Secularists have been dismayed not just due to the return to power of the Shiv Sena in the Brihanmumbai (…)

Caught between anti-corruption hypocrisies and pre-election manipulations, we are failing to notice the gathering clouds of a new kind of terrorism. Many perceptive observers had commented that America’s “war on terror” would in fact inflame terrorism instead of containing it. Is that happening already?
It is clear that hatred of America has intensified among those who were targeted by the war on terror. In spite of the civilian government, handpicked and installed by the US in Baghdad, (…)

I. Introduction
Education is critically important to social development. According to Amartya Sen, it helps in building up human capabilities. Educational attainment is one of the main criteria in indexing human development. Among Indian States, Kerala stands at the top in the Human Develop-ment Index. From a historical perspective, the unique contributions of Churches towards this, particularly in the domains of education and health, are indisputable.
Though education as a ‘merit good’ (…)

“I wonder whether Nitish Kumar is an offshoot of Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement; he seems to have emerged from Laloo Yadav’s movement,” said Prof Nawal Kishor Chaudhury, with a wink of sarcasm, in an informal conver-sation during a seminar in Saharsa (Bihar). Prof Chaudhury, an economist of eminence, affiliated with Patna University, had to disclose another barbed wit, that he turned down the offer of ascending to the position of Vice-Chancellor of one of the old universities in Bihar. For, (…)

by R.B. SREEKUMAR
The Apex Court order (January 25, 2012) entrusting the inquiry to a retired Supreme Court judge, Justice M.B. Shah, of all 21 extra-judicial killings by the Gujarat Police from October 2002 to December 2006, is welcomed by all law-abiding citizens. This has confirmed the representation of the human rights activists that the Narendra Modi Government, since the days of the anti-minority carnage following the gruesome killing of 59 Hindus on February 27, 2002 in a train fire (…)