General Issues News - Frontline

Bina Paul in Thiruvananthapuram in December 2016. Paul says that with the Hema Committee report, the sense that women exist in the film industry’s labour force and have to be acknowledged has become very important.

It cannot get dirtier, it can only get cleaner: Bina Paul

The National Award-winning editor believes that the feudal mindset existing in certain sections of the Malayalam film industry must go.

R.K. Radhakrishnan

Two provisions in the UAPA have been identified with the inherent potential to make the very process a source of punishment for the accused. Seen here are posters from a meeting in Kochi held to highlight the problems in the law in January 2020.

Why UAPA is a threat to media freedom in India

The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act serves as a powerful tool for the state to stifle media dissent and intimidate truth-seeking journalists.

LIVELIHOOD ISSUES

MGNREGA: Wake-up call

A Parliamentary Standing Committee pulls up the Rural Development Ministry in its report on a “critical evaluation” of the MGNREGA and calls for more

T.K. Rajalakshmi

Crimes against women

Women’s organisations in Maharashtra want a holistic approach, not the Shakti Bill

The Maharashtra government defers the Shakti Bill, a proposed law on crimes against women and children, after women’s rights lawyers and activists pro

Anupama Katakam

The NLAT fiasco

A question of equitable access to legal education

As legal education becomes increasingly expensive, government intervention to support NLUs, increase scholarship grants and roll back fees is the need

Prannv Dhawan ,Devansh Kaushik

Development Issues

Mumbai Metro's car shed project vs green brigade

Both the Mumbai Metro project in Aarey and the protests against it are plagued by serious limitations.

ANUPAMA KATAKAM

More stories from General Issues

People of Nanar, Ratnagiri district, in no mood to give way to government officers who are measuring land for the refinery project. A file photograph.

Site of the Ratnagiri petrochemicals project: Uncertain ground

The livelihoods of several thousand farmers and fishermen hang in the balance as the powers that be decide on the site of what will be India’s largest

Prashant Kanojia, a Hindi journalist, being released from the Lucknow jail on June 12.

Unlawful arrests

By arresting journalists for their social media posts under the provisions of the IT Act that the Supreme Court has struck down, the Uttar Pradesh Pol

Amol Palekar, a file picture.

Art and dissent

Amol Palekar’s experience at the NGMA and certain decisions by the gallery are indicative of the current regime’s intolerance of dissent and disdain f

Anupama Katakam

At Nunna village on the outskirts of Vijayawada where the Godavari enters Krishna district as part of the project linking the Krishna and the Godavari, a 2015 picture.

A pipe dream

The interlinking of rivers is an ill-conceived, ruinously expensive, technically questionable, ecologically devastating and socially disruptive nation

S.G. Vombatkere

Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar (top row centre) after he was produced at Patiala House Courts by the CBI in connection with bribery allegations involving its Special Director Rakesh Asthana, in New Delhi, on October 23. To Kumar’s right is A.K. Bassi, one of the investigating officers in the case.

Deeper rot

Manish Kumar Sinha, one of the CBI officers investigating the Moin Qureshi case, files a petition before the Supreme Court against his transfer and in

Workers from Uttar Pradesh load a motorcycle atop a bus as they leave Ahmedabad on October 9.

Enemies overnight

The attacks against migrant workers in Gujarat are symptomatic of jobless growth and a resentment that has its roots in the governmental neglect of SM

Lyla Bavadam in Ahmedabad

Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar stated in their lead judgment that “progression in law and the perceptual shift compels the present to have a penetrating look to the past”.

Axing adultery law

Making constitutional morality as the basis of its judgment, the Supreme Court decriminalises adultery, holding that Section 497 of the IPC is “backwa

T.K. Rajalakshmi

HYDERABAD: TELANGANA: 10/11/2017: The Centre for Dalit Studies (CDS) is organising the 7th S.R. Sankaran Memorial Lecture on November 10 at Ravindra Bharathi on Is separate electorate a better option to caste-based political reservations delivered by Martin Macwan, a Dalit human rights activist from Gujarat, who is also Robert J. Kennedy awardee and Director of Dalit Shakti Kendram, in Hyderabad. Photo: G. Ramakrishna

Of Dalit awakening, upper-caste jealousy

Interview with Martin Macwan, Dalit rights activist.

Chank fisheries of Palk Bay

The fisheries and trade for the sacred chank (Turbinella pyrum) has been practiced for over two millennia. Since the 1970s, this fishery and its trade has been carried on outside of strict state control. This means that fishers now only need a licence from the government to collect chank but are free to sell it to anyone. Using the techniques of free diving, the live chank is collected from both the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar. When brought ashore, the chank collected in this manner still contains a mantle of organic matter and retains the animal inside it. It is sold to merchants who sort the shells according to their size and quality and to small-scale shell processors for further stages of processing. These stages involve the smoothening and polishing of the shell after which the chank moves towards distinct markets – the bangle manufacturers, decorative shell retailers or for sale as a sacred object of worship. Blowing into the sacred chank is a ritual performance integral to many cultures in India and other countries, symbolising the warding off of evil and the announcement of an auspicious moment.

A journey with the sacred chank

Freediving in the Palk Bay

‘Hijra has become a political identity’

Interview with Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli and Rachana Mudraboyina.

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