Excerpt from the chapter “Impact on Agriculture, Trade, and Livelihoods” in “Violent Cow Protection in India: Vigilante Groups Attack Minorities”, a 104 page Human Rights Watch report, released recently: The cow protection movement is hurting farmers and herders, and impacting their right to a livelihood. M.L. Parihar, a Rajasthan-based author and expert on animal husbandry, … More Dalit, Muslim livelihood disproportionately affected by attacks in the name of cow protection

By Sheshu Babu* Though the trend towards ‘nuclear’ families, where the family unit is mainly parents and children, is increasing, there are indications of increase in families which are neither nuclear nor joint. These may be called ‘broken extended ‘ families. Over half of India’s households have been recorded as nuclear families since 1990s. Joint … More Broken extended households may be 4% of the total, but these have grown by 180%  in a decade

Letter by PS Krishnan, IAS (Retd), former secretary to Government of India, Ministry of Welfare; and member, National Monitoring Committee for Education of SCs, STs and Persons with Disabilities, Government of India, to the Prime Minister regarding importance of immediately launching national centrally-funded programme of universal agricultural land-distribution to all rural SC families, and also … More Need to eliminate historical injustice by providing a viable extent of agricultural land to SCs and STs

By Enamul Mazid Khan Siddique* What does the Hilsa – the most popular fish among Bengalis, have to do with human rights? Well to understand that we need to understand the human dimensions of South Asian fisheries management, and also the life cycle of Hilsa, also known as Ilish. The Hilsa is an anadromous fish, … More India, Bangladesh should focus on needs of the poor fisherfolk while working for preserving Hilsa

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External … More Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries, especially Qatar

By Sekhar Bandyopadhyay*, Jane Buckingham** More than half a million people of Indian descent live in Australia and New Zealand. The history of the Indian diaspora in these countries is older than many might imagine, going back 250 years. Indians are today widely acknowledged as a successful ethnic community that makes significant contributions to their … More Recent Indian migrants to Australia and New Zealand are young, from lower rungs of social ladder