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.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Molestation Case Revives Calls for Police Reforms

By Ranjit Devraj
Public anger over the light sentencing of a retired top police official in the northern state of Haryana for molesting a 14-year-old girl may well prove to be the trigger for police reforms in India – a country clinging on to oppressive colonial laws framed in 1861.
Nurse Amita Dhaka distributes food provided for patients and their attendants by the Santhigiri charity at the Rural Medicare Society hospital. Credit: Ranjit Devraj/IPS

HEALTH-INDIA: Hunger Haunts Hospitals

By Ranjit Devraj
As a nurse, Amita Dhaka sees much suffering, but what she finds hard to handle is inadequate nutrition and even hunger among poor in-patients.

DEVELOPMENT: Tsunami Brings Sea Change in Coastal Lives

By Ranjit Devraj
Tragic as it was, the Asian tsunami wrought a sea change in the lives of survivors in the sleepy coastal hamlets of southern Tamil Nadu state, where some 8,000 people are known to have died.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Hi-Tech Beats Sex Selection Ban

By Ranjit Devraj
When a magistrate in the western port city of Mumbai convicted two doctors in November for advertising sex selection services, it showed determination to enforce laws aimed at stopping gender determination tests linked to the mass abortion of female foetuses.

CLIMATE CHANGE: India Plays Guessing Game Ahead of Copenhagen

By Ranjit Devraj
With one week left before the start of the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen, there is still no reliable word as to whether Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend, or whether or how much the South Asian state will commit itself to emission cuts.

INDIA: Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal on Track, But Kinks Remain

By Ranjit Devraj
As Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wound down his state visit to the United States, Indian analysts say a major achievement has been ensuring that the civilian nuclear agreement between the two countries is on track.
The Dalai Lama at the Tawang monastery Credit: dalailama.com

INDIA/CHINA: Dalai Lama’s Border State Visit: Purely Spiritual?

By Ranjit Devraj
It is hard to say whether the Dalai Lama’s sojourn this week in India’s Arunachal Pradesh state—which China claims as southern Tibet—is a purely spiritual exercise or a trip with a deep political mission.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Gov’t Urged to Rethink War on Maoists

By Ranjit Devraj
In the lull before the storm that the central government has vowed to unleash on Maoist rebels this month, voices of caution are being heard against precipitating an armed confrontation that could further hurt marginalised and largely indigenous populations in the worst affected central and eastern Indian states.

RIGHTS: Rising China Poses Danger to Peace, Say Nobel Laureates

By Ranjit Devraj
An ascendant China that ignores human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang, poses a danger to world peace, say Nobel laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Jody Williams.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairperson of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says neither India nor China is likely to agree to ‘binding

ENVIRONMENT-POLITICS: India-China Deal Reinforces Climate Stand

By Ranjit Devraj
India and China’s memorandum of understanding signed last week in this capital may have only had "a symbolic value," but it nevertheless showed that two of the world’s major players were serious about finding an alternative path to dealing with climate change while trying to attain sustainable development, said a top United Nations official.
Brinjal, a traditional crop in India, is now the subject of a raging debate on genetically modified food. Credit: Ranjit Devraj/IPS

INDIA: Controversy Rages over Genetically Modified ‘Brinjal’

By Ranjit Devraj
Scientists and activists say that but for the fact that the 'brinjal', also called 'eggplant' or 'aubergine', is native to India and a favourite on the table, the decision to allow commercial release of its genetically modified (GM) variety may have gone unremarked.

INDIA/CHINA: Hopes for Early Border Settlement Recede

By Ranjit Devraj
Hopes for an early settlement of the ‘world’s oldest standing border dispute’ receded last week after Asian neighbours China and India engaged in a tit-for-tat spat that ran counter to the spirit of a formal dialogue they are engaged in.
(From left to right) Prof Gargi Chakarvarthy, Dr Usha Shrivastava and Annie Raja call on government to bring back the ‘dais

INDIA: Return of Traditional Birth Attendants Urged to Meet MDG 5

By Ranjit Devraj
As India struggles to lower one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates, activists and experts are calling for a revision of polices aimed at "institutionalising" deliveries in resource-poor rural settings and phasing out the 'dai' or traditional birth attendant (TBA).
A door-to-door vegetable vendor uses her mobile phone to increase her earnings. Credit: Ranjit Devraj

DEVELOPMENT: Rural India Set to Ring in 3G Mobile Technology

By Ranjit Devraj
As India prepares to roll out third-generation (3G) mobile services in the world's fastest growing telecom market, there are high expectations that it will benefit people in the vast, impoverished rural hinterland most.
Kala Dera farmers apply drip irrigation that some say is "costly and unsustainable". Credit: Coca-Cola

DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Farmers Vs Coca-Cola in Water Wars

By Ranjit Devraj
As India faces its worst drought in four decades, a dispute over water resources between farmers in the Kala Dera area of western Rajasthan state and a Coca-Cola bottling plant located there has sharpened.
The Dalai Lama during his July visit to the Lahaul Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh state Credit: dalailama.com

INDIA/CHINA: Dalai’s Planned Visit to Border State Sparks Row

By Ranjit Devraj
The Dalai Lama’s planned visit to Arunachal Pradesh appears to be a simple, pastoral response to Buddhist flocks in that north-eastern Indian state.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Gujarat State on Trial for Extrajudicial Killings

By Ranjit Devraj
When police in western Gujarat state claimed to have shot dead four members of the militant Lashkar-e-Toiba (Soldiers of God) group, otherwise known as LeT, including a 19-year-old girl student, on Jun. 15, 2004, in an ‘encounter,’ few believed them.

INDIA: Deeper Probe Sought on Chopper Crashes Killing Politicians

By Ranjit Devraj
After an aviation accident claimed yet another of India’s top leaders recently, experts are calling for stricter controls on the use of helicopters and small aircraft by politicians in a hurry to reach their destinations.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Judging the Judges’ Wealth

By Ranjit Devraj
By agreeing to make public details of their personal wealth, judges of India’s Supreme Court have conceded ground that could lead to better accountability in a judicial system set up under British colonial rule.

ENVIRONMENT: ‘Water Recklessness Worsening Drought’

By Ranjit Devraj
India’s current dry spell, brought on by an errant annual monsoon, is rapidly turning into a full-fledged drought as a result of reckless exploitation of groundwater resources for farming, experts say.

INDIA: Swine Flu Tests Privatised Health Care

By Ranjit Devraj
While the swine flu pandemic has not hit India too hard, it has sorely tested the country’s ailing health delivery system and its plans to remedy the situation through ‘private-public partnerships.’
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*