Buddhi Devi was 14 when she was betrothed. In India, that is not unusual: many marry young. Her intended was a boy from her village who was two years younger — that, too, was not strange. But she was also supposed to marry her future husband’s younger brother, once he was old enough. Now 70 and a widow who is still married— one of her husbands is dead — Ms. Devi...

After being cornered by the Opposition political parties on several occasions for the past two years over the cases of recurring farmers' suicides in Orissa, the state government has finally come out with a report on the matter. According to the report released in the state legislative assembly by Damodar Rout, the minister for agriculture and cooperation, 46 farmers have committed suicide in 2009-10 and in 2010-11 so far due to...

Amflora is a kind of miracle potato: it is precious to the starch industry.  Johan Bergstrom, a blond and boyish man of 31, who farms here with his father, reached into the dark, soft soil and extricated a tennis-ball-size potato, holding it gently so as not to snap off any of a half-dozen white shoots that were growing out of the potato's eyes. He advised against tasting the potato, whose...

The Centre is gearing to introduce a tribal policy that has been gathering dust for five years, hoping the move will win the tribals over from the Maoists. The draft of the National Tribal Policy, which proposes land rights for Adivasis and aims to bring their human development indices on a par with the rest of the country by 2020, will be placed before the cabinet this month, tribal ministry officials...

India grapples with endemic backwardness in over 200 districts while some sectors and sections make global headlines. The Centre on Market Solutions to Poverty's report, Creating Vibrant Public-Private-Panchayat Partnerships for Inclusive Growth through Inclusive Governance explores this paradox by looking at the ground-level realities in local governance through the Panchayati Raj, the issues of agricultural productivity and value addition, and the role that the business sector could play in rural...