Stories written by Ranjit Devraj
Regional editor Ranjit Devraj, based in Delhi, takes care of the journalistic production from the Asia and Pacific region. He handles a group of influential writers based in places like Bangkok, Rangoon, Tehran, Dubai, Karachi, Colombo, Melbourne, Beijing and Tokyo, among many others. He coordinates with the editor in chief and forms part of the IPS editorial team.
Ranjit Devraj has been an IPS correspondent in India since 1997. Prior to that he was a special correspondent with the United News of India news agency. Assignments for UNI included development of the agency’s overseas operations, particularly in the Gulf region. Devraj counts two years in the trenches (1989-1990) covering the violent Gorkha autonomy movement in the Darjeeling Hills as most valuable in a career of varied journalistic experience.
Responding to the lack of computer training in Mukteshwar’s schools, Veena Sethi, a retired Delhi University professor, set up two used personal computers in the basement of her home with the aim of bringing the basics of computing to school children.
Rights activists hope that a contempt case before India’s Supreme Court will add impetus to calls for greater accountability in the judiciary, the integrity of which has been seriously questioned in recent years.
The life sentence served on Dr Binayak Sen on charges of helping Maoist rebels in eastern India has rattled people and organisations fighting to strengthen human rights in a country that prides itself on being the world’s biggest democracy.
Retail giants pushing the European Union-India free trade deal promise consumers a "new and dynamic retail experience" but ignore the fate of India’s "mom-and-pop" stores and some 40 million people they employ.
A plan to establish waste-to-energy plants in New Delhi as part of a carbon- trading programme has run into fierce opposition over hazards posed by toxic chemical byproducts.
Indian owners of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and luxury cars, who have been benefiting from subsidies on diesel meant to help farmers, may soon have to pay real prices for their fuel.
A new report suggesting that illegal transfers of funds into accounts abroad by India’s corrupt politicians, officials and businessmen average 19.3 billion dollars a year could turn out to be a "gross underestimate", watchdogs warn.
As India is rocked by a series of billion-dollar scams, the question on everybody's mind is whether the perpetrators will go scot-free in what has been described as a low-risk, high-gain activity in this country.
A permanent seat in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is no longer a pie in the sky for India with U.S. President Barack Obama formally endorsing the candidature of this Asian giant with 1.2 billion people.
A series of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) is threatening the livelihoods of India's fishermen on the 8,000 km peninsular coastline - among the longest in the world - and the diets of millions of Indians for whom fish is a cheap source of protein.
When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returns home from his current tour of Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam he will likely reflect on how closely the spectre of a an assertive China had dogged his travels.
Embarrassing retractions of scientific papers and a thinly-disguised report favouring introduction of genetically modified crops by the country's top science academies have revived calls for more stringent action against plagiarism and unethical practices.
Campaigners against the death penalty in India are hopeful that a series of commutations of hanging sentences to life imprisonment this month will add up to a trend against the award of capital punishment.
With India's role as 'pharmacy to the developing world' seriously threatened by a free trade agreement to be signed with the European Union in December, the fate of cheap or free antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS hangs in balance.
Child rights activists hope that the arrest of the principal of one of India's elite public schools for caning a student and possibly abetting his suicide will serve to put an end to the widespread practice of corporeal punishment in this country's educational institutions.
A draconian law that allows army officers to shoot civilians in areas declared 'disturbed' has come under intense scrutiny, mainly as a result of months of separatist street protests in India's Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) state.
When India's Supreme Court reacted to the news that thousands of tonnes of grain were rotting in the rain due to lack of granary space and ordered the government to distribute the surplus free of cost to the hungry, it seemed like the logical thing to do.
Fears about loss of privacy are being voiced as India gears up to launch an ambitious scheme to biometrically identify and number each of its 1.2 billion inhabitants.
Voluntary and charitable organisations in India are aghast at a new law to restrict foreign contributions, that was passed by both Houses of Parliament recently.