महाराष्ट्र और गुजरात में जारी सूखे की स्थिति से यह अनुमान लगाना मुश्किल नहीं है कि आने वाले दिनों में पानी की उपलब्धता का मुद्दा और गंभीर हो सकता है और पानी की किल्लत कई किस्म के संघर्षों की जननि साबित हो सकती है। भारत आज विश्व में भूमिगत जल का सबसे बड़ा उपभोक्ता है। बहरहाल यह बात दिन के उजाले की तरह साफ हो चुकी है कि जिस रीति...

Not a quota within quota but a commitment to social justice and a proactive offer to field women from the subaltern strata. That is the way to silence the opponents of the Bill.  Fourteen years and one small victory later, the Women's Reservation Bill has again begun to look iffy. In all this time, a lot many things could have been done independent of the fate of the Bill. Those in...

BD Sharma is one of India's foremost experts on tribal issues. He has served as collector of undivided Bastar district in Chhattisgarh and commissioner for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and has campaigned extensively to protect the rights of tribals. Currently, the coordinator of Bharat Jan Andolan, a network of grass-roots organisations, Sharma tells that current notions of development are at the root of the Maoist insurgency: What has changed...

The agriculture ministry’s revised farm output projections for this year, indicating just about a 7.5 per cent downturn in foodgrain production despite the worst drought in recent years, lend themselves to some significant inferences. For one, the performance of the crops has turned out to be far better than what was feared. The earlier projections, released in November last, had put the likely crop loss at over 21 million tonnes,...

Surging food inflation, decline in agriculture growth rate and the impending food security bill are expected to be at the centre of the coming Union budget. With a bumper wheat harvest expected this rabi, there are projections of a turnaround in the farm sector from the present growth rate of 0.2 per cent. Food prices, which grew at an unprecedented rate of nearly 20 per cent in January, are expected...