Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board [KIIFB] has been drawing news headlines for a long time. It was mostly for all the good that it was doing. But recently it is all for the wrong reasons. Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board [KIIFB] has been existing since 1999. In 2016, the current government reconstituted the organisation to a corporate body enabling it to attract investments to the state to fund infrastructure development projects. Kerala government is guaranteeing most part of the payments to KIIFB. It’s like, if KIIFB funds a road project, Kerala government will return the money to KIIFB in instalments over the years. KIIFB will attract investments globally at competitive rates making the cost of funds to the government much better than what is otherwise available from financial institutions in India. The need for such a novel financial intervention was the debt pile Kerala was carrying. The fiscal norms in India were not allowing the Kerala government to take more...

A day won’t pass without news of school-going girls or women raped in Kerala. The difference is only the attention that each gets. Some are trumpeted out from newsrooms, some sidelined. It seems like the public does not care. The public takes it in the stride as if it is an inevitable road accident. Few movies and violent crimes here and there shake the public consciousness then and now. That’s all! We do not fight this malaise as we fight polio or cancer or child labour. It’s probably because we do not have crusaders for the cause. Except for some samaritans, we have vultures who devour the social evil. We have political leaders who belittle the victims, police who protects the violator, judicial system which only exacerbate the pain of the victim, society which isolates the family and media who run their own agenda. Where do we have an institution that can help the survivor overcome the physical and emotional trauma, the family from social ostracization while ensuring the legal recou...