-Survival International Anthropologist Dr. Felix Padel works with the tribes of Odisha in eastern India, including the Dongria Kondh, for whom Survival International has campaigned for 10 years. Felix is the great great grandson of Charles Darwin and lives in a remote village in Odisha. In this interview, he talks to Survival about the Dongria Kondh's relationship to their mountains, their heroic struggle against Vedanta, Darwin's evolution theory and the experience...

-Down to Earth Thousands of people working under NREGS bring a 38 km stream back from the dead in Uttar Pradesh Thirty nine-year-old Ram Ishwar gave up farming to pull a rickshaw outside the railway station in Uttar Pradesh's Fatehpur town. He says scarcity of water and a resultant increase in the cost of irrigation rendered farming unprofitable. Wheat production from his 0.4 hectare (ha) farmland shrank from one tonne to half...

-The Business Standard Oil minister says Parikh report sound but government has to take realities into account; to proceed with Direct Benefits Transfer in 291 districts from January despite SC order Union petroleum minister M Veerappa Moily said there'd be no raising of the present cap on the number of subsidised cooking gas (LPG) cylinders a household was entitled to in a year. In the wake of severe electoral reverses for the ruling...

-Down to Earth The free medicine scheme in Rajasthan may benefit Congress Of the many poll sops that Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot doled out in the past two years, the one scheme that seems to have struck the right chord with voters is the initiative to give free essential medicines at government healthcare facilities. The Mukhyamantri Nishulk Dava Yojna, launched in 2011, has offered some hope to the incumbent Congress government,...

-The Times of India VIJAYAWADA: Cyclone Helen caused havoc in Krishna and Godavari delta areas of Andhra Pradesh destroying standing crops in about 10 lakh acres and causing a loss of about Rs 5,000 crore. According to initial estimates, about three lakh acres of rice in East and West Godavari districts separately and 2.5 lakh acres in Krishna district were damaged. Another one lakh acre of crops was damaged in Visakhapatnam and...