This Indian Boy Deserves Attention As The Syrian Toddler

By SWARA BOSE | INNLIVE

The truth is that we are numb to the tragedies around us. It was the way he was dressed: the dark shorts, the red shirt and the shoes. It made countless people on my Facebook timeline say: This could have been my child.

But what if he had been wearing tattered clothes, broken slippers, or perhaps not even that? What if he had been thin and dark and malnourished? What if he had been just another poor child escaping not war but hunger and landing up on the streets of our cities? Would he even get a passing glance?

Electricity Conundrum In India: Idle Generators In The Midst Of Acute Power Deficit In Telangana & Andhra

The Southern region of India is expected to face high energy deficit this year while the Western and Eastern region will have a surplus of energy generation. INNLIVE explains why such regional skew in energy generation and energy consumption exists and what it will take to resolve it.

Southern India is expected to face a severe electricity shortage this year. The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) in its latest annual forecast anticipates the energy deficit in the southern electricity grid to be over 11 percent, equivalent to a generation capacity deficit of 4000 MW. For Karnataka and Telangana, the forecasted energy deficit is greater than 16 percent.

The 'Deep Crisis' In The 'Great Indian Education Bazaar'!

From asking students to resolve matters through ‘other means’ to convincing naive aspirants with false promises, private educational institutions have earned themselves the adage of ‘scamsters’.

Anil Sadagopal, a well-known educationist calls it the ‘Kumbhakarna-like sleep’. Even after years and years of hoarse chants from activists, policy-makers, children, youth and adults — quality education that is supposed to be a fundamental right to all, is still a dream in India. It is perhaps for this very reason that Sadagopal had demanded the Indian state to wake up from its slumber.

Why I Never Allow My Child To Become A Doctor In India?

In India, you are always going to be swamped with patients beyond the logical human capacity. Increasingly, I find myself watching and talking to doctors across two generations and various specialties these days. And increasingly, a sense of despair and disillusionment is writ large in their words.

With 0.7 doctors per 1,000 Indians, the doctor to patient ratio is far below that of other comparable countries like China (1.9), the UK (2.8) and the US (2.5). Spain’s 4.9 seems like an absolute luxury in comparison.

Deadly Mutant Killer Malaria Strains Enters India: Experts Alarmed As Drug-Resistant Parasite Enters From Myanmar

Now this is another deadly bite to worry about, more so because the antimalarial drugs available in India may soon lose their teeth against the vector-borne disease, like in Myanmar and Cambodia. 

In the first research report on drug-resistant malaria from India, scientists at the National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR) have traced a mutation in the disease-causing parasite. 

Salman Khan, Kawasi Hidme And The Cobwebs Of Justice

Have you heard about Kawasi Hidme? Chances are high that you have not. How about Salman Khan? Have you heard about him? Of course you have, especially nowadays when everyone has an opinion on the recent verdict against him and the subsequent bail.

This post is not about whether it is right to jail or bail Salman Khan, whether he is guilty or not, but about the bigger picture.

Keeping Minor Girls In Lockup At Night, Chhattisgarh Cops Breaks The Law, Triggers Unrest Amonmg Citizens

Three young girls were allegedly chased, beaten, made to march for eight hours and locked up in a police station. Next day, they were sent 400 Kms from their homes.

A note put up before a magistrate in Dantewada by three adivasi women, Somdi, Gangi and Lakme, recounts the events of April 27 that have resulted in their daughters – three minor girls, one aged 15, the other two aged 17 – being taken 400 kilometres away by the police.

Why Gujarat Isn’t The Financially Perfect State In India?

Many claims that Gujarat is the financially perfect state. But reality differs. 

On top of the list of India’s financially best managed states is an unlikely winner—Chhattisgarh, an underdeveloped but resource-rich state that has outperformed some of the country’s most industrialised provinces.

“The relatively new and small mineral-rich state in the eastern part of the country—Chhattisgarh—stands out as the financially most well-managed state in India, because of a revenue surplus budget and low interest payment burden,” said a research report by securities firm, Nomura, which analysed budgets of 18 states in India.

Is Modi's Pet 'Swachh Bharat' Grounded Before Take-Off?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship programme to clean India through specialised Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) may be doomed even before its proper take-off, due to lack of clarity in guidelines and inadequate funding.

In a presentation before the parliamentary panel that scrutinised grants for ministry of drinking water and sanitation, secretary Vijaylaxmi Joshi, not only lamented the inadequate budget, but also lack of clarity on funding pattern and guidelines of 'Swachh Bharat Kosh'.

Terrifying Motorcyclist Thrust In Air, Trapped By High-Voltage Power Cables As They Were Airlifted To A Pylon

Onlookers were left aghast after a motorbike got entangled in a power transmission high-tension cable at a height of 80 feet. 

However, the reality was that it was no stunt act. Bewildered passersby just couldn’t stop asking: How that happened? 

The incident happened at Batuali in Ambikapur district, north Chhattisgarh, 320km from Raipur. 

Airlifting of high-tension cable wire for a power transmission tower was being carried out near a bypass road. 

Chhattisgarh's 'Blooming Health Business': Where The Doctors 'Getting Rich' At The Cost Of 'Women Uterus'

Since the state of Chhatisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, Chhattisgarh has descended on its poor women with a spate of public-health messages: Have fewer children, don’t deliver babies at home, and only trust health professionals, not your age-old beliefs, for decisions about well-being. From the remote villages in the rural grain bowl of the north to urbanised extensions of the capital city Raipur, women are listening.

In 2014, more than 124,000 women received tubectomies, a sterilisation procedure that accounts for 92% of all family-planning methods, according to the National Health Mission.

If You're A Tribal, Maoist Sympathizer You'll Land In Jail

Chhattisgarh police, hogging limelight for controversial surrenders of alleged lower-rung Maoist cadre, have been keeping tribals behind bars framing them under the Arms Act and IPC Section 307 (attempt to murder). 

Their crime: carrying bada bartan (a big cooking utensil), umbrella, traditional bow and arrow, kitchen knife.. Some of these tribals have spent several years in jail, though their names never figured in the chargesheets or the witnesses never identified them as accused.

Opinion: When Modi Mocks NREGA, Ridicules The 80 Million Indians Contributing To Nation’s Development?

The prime minister feels the scheme is just about digging ditches. He would do better looking at government statistics and talking to the country's poor.

Despite all the inimical noises made by the current government, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has survived. The budget recently allocated to it by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley confirms the government is not willing to axe the scheme – at least not this year. But does that rule out its erosion? 

Golden Telangana: A Galore Of Opportunities, Challenges

The newest State in India, Telangana, shows impressive figures on the economic performance front, whereas in respect of human and social conditions, it appears to be lagging behind.

First the good news. The Budget for 2015-16 and the Socio-Economic Outlook 2015 (Reinventing Telangana: First Steps) presented on March 11 state that the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth was estimated to be 5.3% for 2014-15 as against 4.8% in the previous financial year 2013-14. 

Book Review: A Paean To Chhattisgarh From 'Exiled Lover'

SPONSORED: Dr Ilina Sen’s association with Chhattisgarh and her deep, empathetic understanding of its society and culture have come lyrically alive in "Inside Chhattisgarh: A Political Memoir." 

In November 2000, the state of Chhattisgarh was carved out of 16 eastern districts of Madhya Pradesh. At that time noted sociologist Dr Ilina Sen and her husband Dr Binayak Sen, who had chosen to make it their home and share the lives of its people, had no inkling, perhaps, of how this political act would one day so dramatically impact their own lives.

Barely seven years later, Dr Binayak Sen was arrested and charged with sedition. The manner in which he was branded as the “mastermind of the Naxalites” and the case built around him by the state and a compliant local media had a marked impact.

Chhattisgarh Order Revives Old Question: Can Secular Constitution Work In Hands Of RSS-Ridden Bureaucracy?

The founding fathers were clear that civil servants should not be permitted to join political organisations such as the RSS.

The Chhattisgarh government’s notification this week allowing state employees to join the controversial Hindutva organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has revived two questions. First, will communalised officials be able to uphold the Constitution in its letter and spirit? And second, should the RSS still be treated as just another cultural organisation that lacks political overtones?

Focus: Will 'Aam Aadmi Party' Deliver The True 'Swaraj'?

The initial euphoria over its emphatic electoral win over, the focus is now on realities within which the AAP will have to deliver on its promises. INNLIVE explores if the party can realise its vision of ‘swaraj,’ living up to the true ideals of decentralisation.

Ever since the AAP's win in Delhi, there have been a spate of articles on right wing websites, questioning the rationale of issues that form the core of the AAP's political ideologies.

Chhattisgarh Government Decided To Celebrate 'Mother's And Father's Day' Instead Of 'Valentine's Day' On Feb 14

The BJP government in Chhattisgarh wants to purge February 14 of any hint of romance.

The Chhattisgarh government wants to save school children from classmate crushes and instead get them to love their parents. Earlier this week, the state education directorate sent out circulars to the district education officers, asking them to ensure that all schools celebrate “Matri-Pitri Divas” or Mother’s and Father’s Day on February 14.

A government spokesperson, who requested anonymity, said that it was “obvious” why the state had chosen Valentine’s Day for such a celebration.

Special Report: Why Chhattisgarh State Ration Shops Are Turning Away People Without 'JDY Bank Account'?

This is probably part of the national push to replace food rations with cash transfers. In the first week of January in Chhattisgarh, many people who went to government ration shops to collect their month supply of food grains were turned away because they did not have bank accounts.

It is usually the poor who do not have bank accounts. So, for a couple of weeks, it was those in the greatest need of subsidised grains who went without them.

‘Speak, For Thy Tongue Is Free’: Urdu Poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz

The language that ignited Ghalib’s tongue and fired Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry is finding new takers in the country.

In 1954 the Central Working Committee of the Bharatiya Janta Sangh, a precursor to the Bhartiya Janta Party(BJP) declared Urdu to be “The language of no region in India, it being only a foreign and unacceptable style of Hindi with a foreign script and foreign vocabulary imposed on India during a period of foreign domination.”