For me, stepping into the simple precincts of Bapu Kutir in Sevagram and seeing Gandhiji’s personal belongings was indeed a lesson in humility.  The charkha holds pride of place in the small mud dwelling even as Gandhians take turns to spin the wheel. One gentleman told us that a national shift to khadi would provide employment to thousands of people. The greatest thing about visiting Sevagram is to find that the...

Speakers at a State-level seminar here today vehemently opposed the proposal of the Orissa government to supply Water from Hansua River in Jagatsinghpur district to proposed Posco steel plant at Paradip. Organized by Odisha Jala Surakhya Janamanch, the seminar was attended among others by hundreds of farmers from areas like Biridi, Raghunathpu, Tirtol, Erasama and Balikuda of the district. The Janamanch convener Chittaranjan Mohanty told the gathering that Hansua is...

Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Friday announced that the state government would allow 2.5 floor space index (FSI) for the housing schemes in the city for the urban poor. The schemes would be planned by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA). “There had been a demand for additional FSI for housing schemes of MHADA in Pune so that more houses could be made available to the poor. The houses...

  The sea change that India’s national scheme for rural employment guarantee has accomplished is hard to fathom, its vastness touching the lives or more than 100 million people. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (NREGA, subsequently renamed after Mahatma Gandhi, or MGNREGA) was a landmark in Indian legislation. Under the act, as of April 2008, for the first time in India’s history, all rural citizens have a legal right...

The rapid increase in urbanisation and allied infrastructure development activities are causing a shrinking of agricultural land in the Kashmir Valley. Farmers fear that this growing trend of private builders to purchase farmland for building residential colonies would lead to a devastating food crisis in that Kashmir Valley in the coming years. Though the law prevents the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, the allotment of the land for construction comes...