A few months ago, Purno Sangma, now the main Opposition candidate for the Presidential election, had come to a meeting that I had organized at Jamia Millia Islamia. It was the Annual Saifuddin Kitchelew Lecture and since I hold the Kitchelew Chair, I had invited him to preside over the session. The main speaker was…
Thirteen-year-old Salman’s day starts at 6 am when he sets off from his home at Shahbad Daulatpur to Rohini Sector 18. Once there, he begins his work: scrounging through garbage. Salman is a wastepicker, one of the three lakh wastepickers in the Capital. One day, Salman hopes to go to school. He has many such…
On April 27, 1998, a 60-year-old Tibetan doused himself with petrol, set himself alight, ran out onto a busy street in a crowded city, enveloped in flames, after. Thubten Ngodup’s last words, \shouted even as he was burning like a torch, were ‘Po Gyalo!’ (Victory for Tibet!) ‘Po Rangzen!’ (Free Tibet!). His act of self-immolation…
Geneva, Switzerland -- Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Myanmar pro-democracy leader, will participate in the tenth annual high-level retreat of mediators and peace process actors, known as the Oslo forum, which will take place on 18-19 June 2012 in Oslo, Norway. The overall theme for this years forum will be…
P. SAINATH of "The Hindu" is a journalist I respect. He is one of the few journalists who visit the countryside and file stories which are earthy and full of passion. His reports on paid news exposed a practice in Maharashtra and elsewhere where newspapers accept money to print news favourable to the one who…
Two sets of tragedies dominate headlines, both in our region and in other parts of India. And both are related, unfortunately, to the North-east. The first relate to the tragic deaths in quick succession of a young student from Meghalaya in the Delhi region at a private university and of an architecture student in Bangalore…
The state of Assam in northeast India has the highest maternal mortality rate (MMR) in the country. One of the reasons for the abysmal record is that over three million people live on tiny islands along the Brahmaputra River without proper health infrastructure. Boat clinics on the river, an initiative of the Centre for North…
Swedish midwife, Christina Pedersen collaborating with Ipas- an organization headquartered in North Carolina, US and working around the world to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, especially the right to safe abortion visited the Tinsukia and Dibrugarh Boat Clinic Units in April 2012. Her report follows with photographs of the camps…
Sanjoy Hazarika will be interviewed on Rajya Sabha TV tonight (April) at 8:30 pm on the issue if racial profiling of people from the NER especially in Delhi. Earlier in the day he was to present on his views on 'Governance and Rights' on the UGC channel at 3:30 pm. last week he was interviewed by…
A severe cyclone accompanied by heavy hailstorm that ripped through Tinsukia district in the late afternoon of 23rd April claimed three lives ( figure is 5 in some reports), besides causing heavy damage to property.More than 40 villages under Kakopathar, Pengeree and Dhola police stations faced the fury of the cyclone. At Majbari village of…