-The Economic Times Pan Singh Tomar, the legendary steeplechase athlete-turned-dacoit, earned an annual salary of 120 or thereabouts from the Indian Army, where he served as a hawildar in the 1950s. These days, his great grandson roams around their ancestral village dispensing similar amounts to those at the bottom of the Indian pyramid. If Tomar Sr had resorted to guns for the latter part of his life, Anuj Singh Tomar too has...

-Down to Earth Rice cultivation has led to waterlogging and soil salinity in Haryana’s Jhajjar district CASTE-BASED khap Panchayats of Haryana are usually in the news for passing regressive and, often, controversial orders in the name of honouring social customs. But this year in January, the Jhakkar khap panchayat of Jhajjar district gave a rather unusual order in the larger interest of the farming community. It ordered that all the 36...

-The Business Standard The consequences of unplanned growth in Haryana real estate One of the positive consequences of the recent focus on the dealings between companies owned by Robert Vadra and the real estate giant DLF is that the unregulated nature of the Haryana land market has become a topic of discussion. Mr Vadra’s companies’ purchases of additional land and apartments were funded from the windfall gains that accrued after a 3.5...

-Frontline There is growing violence against women and children in Haryana, aided by the apparent collusion between the State government and the upper-caste-dominated khap Panchayats. THE road leading to Dabra village in Haryana’s Hisar district is not very difficult to locate. It was at Dabra, a mere 15 kilometres from the district headquarters, that a heinous crime was committed on September 9. It would have gone unnoticed had it not been accompanied...

-Frontline After the year-long Jansamvad Yatra and Jansatyagraha, the Ekta Parishad has a written commitment from the Rural Development Ministry to advance land reforms.  Celebration and caution. These sentiments dominated the deliberations of senior activists of the Ekta Parishad as they gathered at Delhi’s Gandhi Peace Foundation office on October 18, one week after the organisation and the Union government had signed a 10-point agreement to advance land reforms. The agreement had...