Maheshwar (Khargone district, M.P.): “ Hamaari ladaai vikas se nahi, visthaapan se hai [Our fight is against displacement, not development],” Radhe Shyam Patidar of Pathrad village says, with a hint of aggression visible in the wrinkles around his ageing eyes. “We are only demanding proper rehabilitation for our village and we will not back down on that,” he says. Interestingly, whether the Maheshwar dam project, India's first privately financed hydroelectric project,...

The central vigilance committee led by retired Justice D. P. Wadhwa, which was established by the Supreme Court of India to monitor its orders in the PIL on the right to food, has come out with a strong indictment of the public distribution system (PDS). Based on State-level reports for Delhi, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Karnataka, the committee has identified widespread corruption at different levels of the...

What pleases Sunita Devi most about her position in Garhi Hakeeqat is not the Women’s Reservation Bill promising mandatory reservation for women in the electoral process that will promote many like her, but the proud remembrance of the day she climbed up the village chaupal. Until three years ago, the rules were stiff. The chaupal, a raised, circular platform-like structure for public meetings was, for all practical purposes, considered a preserve...

BD Sharma is one of India's foremost experts on tribal issues. He has served as collector of undivided Bastar district in Chhattisgarh and commissioner for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and has campaigned extensively to protect the rights of tribals. Currently, the coordinator of Bharat Jan Andolan, a network of grass-roots organisations, Sharma tells that current notions of development are at the root of the Maoist insurgency: What has changed...

Government today claimed that the problem of migrant labourers is being solved gradually through several Bharat Nirman schemes and rural job guarantee programme, NREGA. Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said in Rajya Sabha during Question Hour that schemes like NREGA, which provides 100 days of guaranteed employment to the rural poor, and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) along with other Bharat Nirman schemes have been beneficial for labourers. "NREGA and...