Sujatha Sundaran, 25, sits on a rickety bench and points to a rubber nursery that was a helipad about a decade ago in Mundakkai colony in the heart of Kerala’s northern district of Kasargod. Local children used to watch with awe as the choppers flew overhead and sprayed the insecticide endosulfan on the cashew groves of the Plantation Corp. of Kerala Ltd, a state government undertaking. She was eight when she...

The farmers who have decided to start bio-farming and other farmers who prefer to adopt local methods to reduce cost of farming should start preparations to make bio-pesticides. Soyabean and other main important crops of Kharif crops are attacked by several types of insects. Since the number of insects is very large, they should be controlled to save the crops. The bio-pesticides prepared to destroy these insects are made mainly...

India is incredible (after shining), with the fastest growth rate, an emerging demographic dividend and innovative brains for the globe. But the vast majority in rural India — employed in agriculture, small-scale and tiny industries, self-employed, and with no assets — does not find it so. This government, claiming inclusive growth for the grossly deprived and poor, has not taken actions to bring down prices of essential food items, unprecedented...

India lives in its villages, Gandhi said. But increasingly, the people of India are dying on its roads. India overtook China to top the world in road fatalities in 2006 and has continued to pull steadily ahead, despite a heavily agrarian population, fewer people than China and far fewer cars than many Western countries. While road deaths in many other big emerging markets have declined or stabilized in recent years,...

Two sisters live in a clearing in the forest about 10 km beyond the abandoned houses and empty yards of Mukram village in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district. A third young girl Cowers in the courtyard of her aunt’s house in neighbouring Tokanpalli. Between 14 and 18 years of age, Kose, Rame and Hidme (names changed) say they fled their homes in Mukram after they were sexually assaulted by Special Police Officers...