Deadline Delhi

Plans are afoot to celebrate the birth of a girl on October 31 as the world’s 7 billionth child near Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. Plan International is using the occasion to draw world attention to India’s growing gender gap. The world’s emerging economic superpower, estimated to overtake China to become the most populous nation by 2030, has 7 million girls ‘missing’ from its population. Hundreds of thousands of female foetuses are terminated in India...

A 30-year-old woman was repeatedly gangraped by security forces for a week during August in the Saranda forests of Jharkhand. Jawans of the anti-Naxal Cobra force captured her house, and made her to live with and cook for them. Today, she does not dare speak out against the barbarity since the jawans subsequently arrested her son for being a Maoist. She fears more for the life of her son, than speaking out against the atrocity that was heaped on her. This woman’s story is not an isolated one...

The CDM Executive Board has approved two controversial Indian mega projects: a new coal fired power plant and a hydro power plant which had recently made headlines because of its non‐additionality and the harm reportedly caused to the local population. The CDM Executive Board once again ignored criticism of environmental integrity of coal projects by approving yet another supercritical coal project. The project is part of Reliance Power Ltd, owned by Anil Ambani. Over the next 10 years the plant...

Almost half (45 per cent) of the world’s threatened sea turtle populations are found in the northern Indian Ocean. The study by top sea turtle experts have also determined that the most significant threats across all of the threatened populations of sea turtles are fisheries bycatch, accidental catches of sea turtles by fishermen targeting other species, and the direct harvest of turtles or their eggs for food or turtle shell material for commercial use. Five of the world’s 11 most threatened...

Reported violence against Indian women is on the rise. But that’s not because of what you think. A recent study argues that this increase reflects growing willingness to report violence against women, rather than an increase in the incidence of crime. There’s a reason for this too: more women are involved in Indian politics than ever before. The study followed data since the 73rd Amenment to the Indian Constitution that required at least one-third of all seats in local governments to be set...

Could the floods in Odisha that are still raging across the state been avoided? A team of journalists and social workers who toured around the Hirakud dam area argue that it certainly could have been. The floods in the region are being described as “man-made”. Far from controlling the floods, dams have only aggravated the situation. The dams were also allegedly allowed to be filled up to the brim in order to retain waters for a dry season so that they could supply power and water to resource...

The thermal power capacity in India which has already received environmental clearances or is in the clearance pipeline is far in excess of what is needed in the coming two decades. Data from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) analysed by the Pune-based Prayas Energy Group shows that the ministry has accorded environmental clearances to a large number of coal and gas-based power plants whose capacity totals 192,913 MW. Another 508,907 MW are at various stages in the environmental...

The villagers here are employed at the nearby mines as labourers. The daily wage fixed by the government is Rs 156, yet the contractor rarely pays them Rs 100. Anyone who raises the issue with either the contractor or company officials gets himself blacklisted from the roll. The village in question is Chilika Daad in Sonebhadra district of coal-rich Singrauli region in India’s Uttar Pradesh state. It stands out as a cruel example of people being displaced several times by different projects and...

They had three sons. They were not rich, but “were quite contented”. In the mid-1950s, her husband responded to the Naga movement and joined the Naga army. He rose through the ranks to become an important officer. His wife and children stayed behind in the village to fend for themselves by labouring in their fields. The Indian army kept constant surveillance and often raided the house hoping to capture him. She lived through constant fear and harassment. After several years in the Naga army, the...

A year after the Press Council of India decided to bury a sub-committee report on the malaise of “paid news” in the news media, the issue has returned to haunt the council again. The Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Press Council make public the report of the two-member sub-committee as part of suo motu disclosure mandated under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Press Council of India had constituted a two member sub-committee comprising senior journalists Paranjoy...