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FeaturesNation's food bowl in crisis
When the state that was the country’s biggest agricultural success story in the 1970s tops the list of indebted farmers, it is obvious that there is something very rotten in the state of agriculture in the country. A three-part series that looks at the agriculture crisis in India’s food bowl, Punjab More... The killing fieldsRani Kaur’s husband committed suicide in 2003. Before that her eldest brother-in-law, Aloo Singh, took his own life in 1993, followed by another brother-in-law, Gurutej Singh, in 1996. In 2004, Gurutej’s son, Kala Singh, ended his life. There have been 81 farmer suicides in Balran village alone in Punjab’s Sangrur district, but the government still has no policy to deal with the worsening situation More... In the name of the GuruThe Nanak Kheti movement to reclaim the natural method of farming practised in the Punjab of yore, hopes to restore the degraded soil, lower input costs, and return farming to being a sustainable activity for the farmer More... How market forces shape urban spacesUrban studies specialist Saskia Sassen challenges conventional wisdom on the homogenising effects of globalisation. On a recent visit to Mumbai she talked about the ways in which the corporate built environment co-exists and sustains a new type of informal economy More... Uncertain future for organic cottonOrganic cotton is being projected as a way out of the pitfalls of capital- and input-intensive agriculture. But poor awareness and little or no support from the government are making even organic cotton cultivation risky and unviable More... Female condoms: Shifting the burden of safe sex to women?Hindustan Latex is all set to market the female condom, particularly to sex workers. NACO is partnering with 61 NGOs across six states to reach out to 60,000 female sex workers. Sex workers in Hyderabad, where the condom was tested, say it gives them a sense of control over their bodies More... Credit, violence and womenWomen and moneylenders have always had a volatile relationship. In suicide-ridden Vidarbha, this aspect of the agrarian crisis has remained largely hidden, but in several documented cases, women have been attacked and their land and property snatched More... Presumed guilty: India's denotified tribesIn September, a mob in Bihar lynched 10 members of a denotified tribe, taking them for thieves. A probe later revealed that they were not thieves. Sixty million people in India belonging to denotified and nomadic tribes continue to suffer such discrimination More... Coastal convulsionsThe proposed Coastal Zone Management notification, which is expected to replace the existing Coastal Regulation Zone notification (1991), will hit the coastline like a second tsunami, say activists. With the shifting of ‘zones’, entire fishing communities will be moved out of coastal areas, making way for unbridled construction in the name of ‘development’ More... Hi-tech building plans threaten to displace Valanthakkadu's dalitsThe tiny island of Valanthakkadu, situated in the middle of Vembanadu lake in Kerala, is being eyed by builders and land developers who want to turn it into a ‘high-tech city’. The local dalit population, which lives entirely off the rich ecosystem, is up in arms More... Breathing new life into old skillsThe sculptors of Shivarapatna in Karnataka are keepers of 1,000-year-old artistic secrets, but scores are opting for other occupations. For the last three years, however, they have been working with a French designer to create modern products in an effort to make their traditional occupations more sustainable More... Karnataka police formulate a workplace policy on HIV/AIDSThe Karnataka State Police has become the first state police department in India to formally unveil a comprehensive and detailed Workplace Policy on HIV/AIDS. But will it work on the ground? More... News from the countrysideA unique experiment to train young villagers in the art of newsgathering and reporting for the Rural Chronicle is being undertaken in Maharashtra. The idea is to make rural youth the eyes and ears of their villages More... The struggle is towards more inclusive economic development: Arjun SenguptaThe National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector recently declared that 836 million Indians remain marginalised. The Commission's Chairman Arjun Sengupta says in this interview that the maximisation of profits should not be the sole aim of economic growth. Planning must occupy itself entirely with the improvement of vulnerable sections of society through social engineering More... Rajasthan padyatra highlights pressing rural problemsA recently-concluded 10-day padyatra of 300 villages in four districts around Jaipur highlighted the problems of land acquisition More... Red Light DispatchRed Light Dispatch, India's first newsmagazine for sex-workers, is brought out exclusively by sex-workers from an office located within a brothel in Mumbai's Kamathipura district. This unique magazine discusses the problems and dreams of sex-workers More... Pulling the right stringsFrom poor village boy, to ragpicker, to famous muppeteer, Mohammad Shamsul admits his life matches up to his dreams! More... Making a meal of Bt cottonIn the Malwa belt of rural Punjab, mile after mile of Bt cotton fields are under attack by the mealy bug pest. Bathinda, Muktsar, Faridkot and Ferozepur, Punjab's four major cotton-growing districts, have been badly affected. The so-called 'magic bullet', Bt cotton has turned into a bitter pill for farmers who were promised profits but who are now faced with huge losses More... The role of cities in climate changeThe danger of treating climate change only as a man-made phenomenon that impacts nature's systems is that it posits the problem in some distant remoteness and absolves all of us of immediate responsibility. The facts tell us that three-quarters of the carbon dioxide in the world, which is the biggest greenhouse gas, is emitted by cities More... Varanasi's disabled: Desperate measuresCaught between local leaders, the state administration and the media, five disabled men in Varanasi died recently in a protest that went horribly wrong. Our correspondent travelled to Varanasi to find out what motivated their desperate act More... The relevance of Naya DaurB R Chopra's Naya Daur, released in 1957, was a compelling film about the onslaught on people's livelihoods. Now, as SEZs edge out farmers and organised retail edges out small vendors and traders, the film, re-released in colour, has a special message about the importance of inclusive growth More... Rainbow, interruptedIs it enough to assert and celebrate queer desire through processes such as Kolkata's Rainbow Pride March? More... Mizoram grapples with changeIn remote Mizoram, Adidas and Benetton showrooms have sprung up. But traditional music, dance and community decision-making are almost dead. Mizoram boasts a literacy rate of 88%. But there are no libraries and cinema halls here. This article explores the dichotomies of a society in transition More... Save the appemidiOnce there were thousands of varieties of appemidi, the tender mango that is at the heart of Karnataka's food culture and mango pickles. Now, with the forests being felled, there are only a few hundred varieties left. A unique festival in Karnataka, visited by 6,000 people, celebrated the appemidi and made a strong statement for its conservation More... Turbulent backwatersKerala is recording a double-digit growth in tourism. Accompanying this are appropriation of commons by resorts, violations of coastal regulations, loss of livelihoods for fishermen, and a mindless destruction of the local ecology. How can Kerala promote a more responsible tourism? More... From eco-tourism to equitable tourismSun, sea and sand are not enough. Add sustainability to your holidays. The new trend of responsible tourism goes beyond eco-tourism. It looks at the triple bottom line - tourism's impact on the local economy, society and the environment. Kerala's Periyar Tiger Reserve is perhaps the finest example of the transformation of a mass tourism destination into a high-value, low-impact zone More... FAQs about SEZsSome hard-hitting facts and figures about Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that rarely make it to the headlines More... Tackling maternal mortality in MPShivpuri and Guna districts in Madhya Pradesh have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in India. But in a PHC in Satanvara block, two young doctors have ensured not a single maternal death in 257 deliveries they've handled over one year More... |
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