FOLLOWING the recent elections to the state assemblies, the BJP is all set to form a government on the basis of its own strength in Haryana and a government led by it in Maharashtra. These results have come after the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) were in government for a long fifteen years and a Congress government in Haryana for two successive times lasting ten years. This has been the people’s verdict in these assembly elections which was, by far, fair and free given that there were no major complaints by any of the contesting parties.

DESPITE the open ended truce that came into force in the last week of August, Gaza continues to lie in ruins. On October 12, the international community pledged more than $5 billion for the rebuilding of Gaza. It is estimated that $4 billion is needed just for reconstructing the devastated infrastructure of the enclave. Even before Israel launched its third and most prolonged military assault on Gaza, it had become unlivable. After the earlier Israeli “Operation Cast Lead” against Gaza in 2009, the international community had pledged over $4 billion.

JOURNALISTS report other people’s events, actions and concerns all the time. But they rarely tell their own stories. A recent workshop on Media and Gender issues was one of those rare occasions when Delhi’s journalists admitted some bitter truths about their own working lives. Several women journalists spoke about the harassment they have experienced while trying to establish themselves as professionals in a challenging environment.

THE horrendous incident of gang-rape of six teenager Mahadalit girls in Kurmuri village under Sikarhatta police station of Bhojpur district did not create the situation which we had witnessed during the Delhi gang rape case.
There was no candle march, no outpourings of emotions, no media reporting from ground zero, no panel discussions on various TV channels and no celebrity visited the place to console the hapless girls who had gone to sell the scrap which they had collected from garbage heaps to help their families in their daily struggle for survival.

ON September 22, 2014, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) withdrew at the behest of the central government, which was bowing to the pressure from drug companies, its July 10 order capping the prices of 108 life-saving drugs. These drugs are essential for treating a whole range of diseases from diabetes to cancer, to tuberculosis, to HIV/AIDS to cardiac diseases.                The sequence of events is as follows.