The wife of a leading Indian human rights activist who has been sent to prison for helping Maoist rebels has said she may seek "political asylum". Ilina Sen, wife of Dr Binayak Sen, told reporters that she and her family were "not feeling safe in India" after her husband's incarceration. Last month Dr Sen was found guilty of carrying messages and setting up bank accounts for the rebels. Activists say the evidence against...

Over the past decade, as crops have failed year after year, 200,000 farmers have killed themselves Naryamaswamy Naik went to the cupboard and took out a tin of pesticide. Then he stood before his wife and children and drank it. "I don't know how much he had borrowed. I asked him, but he wouldn't say," Sugali Nagamma said, her tiny grandson playing at her feet. "I'd tell him: don't worry, we...

A Central Government-sponsored watershed development programme has given a new lease of life to the farming community in Ayalur in Gobichettipalayam block in Erode district. The programme has helped the farmers to adopt best water management practices and take up integrated nutrient management to enhance crop yield. These initiatives have also helped improve the quality of life of the farmers. Ayalur was one of the nine model watershed development projects sanctioned...

More than half of the nation's forests could be moved out of exclusive state control if Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has his way. “We need a complete paradigm shift in the way we look at forest management. Our model is based on the primacy of the state, but we must shift to a three-fold model of state, communities, and partnership between the two,” Mr. Ramesh told...

Slamming the Central Government’s stand on the use of toxic pesticide endosulfan as leading to “a grave violation of human rights”, the National Human Rights Commission has called for a nation-wide ban. India should also agree to a global ban, said the Commission, which also recommended higher compensation for victims. In its report submitted on Friday, the NHRC panel accused the government of ignoring the National Institute of Occupational Health’s study...