In India peasantry is under assault. There is a five-pronged attack on this class and the mighty Indian state is sometimes an active and sometimes a passive abettor. The first point of attack is from the corporate sector. The corporate sector is in a land grab mode. Though not justified, one could understand their urge to get land for industry and real estate purposes. Not that they are causing aggressive...

Over 11 elders including women and a couple of children hailing from Orissa's Koratpur District managed to save themselves from the clutches of serfdom in an obscure village of Karnataka. Buzz up!They reached Orissa on Wednesday, where a voluntary forum apprised the District Labour Officer and facilitated their return to their native village. The role of middlemen luring poor landless labourers came to light due to the efforts of Pragati, the non-governmental...

IN PATNI, a remote village in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh, sevenmonth- old Sandeep is playing in the mud. He finds a pumpkin seed in the dust and promptly puts it into his mouth. A tiny piece of cow dung, a pebble, a fallen leaf and finally the sole of a rubber slipper follow the pumpkin seed. For Sandeep and the children in the 300- odd families in the village,...

Two years of drought has started to take its toll on the people of Vidarbha, with a failed crop leaving them with no income to tide over the crisis. He's a butcher out of business. “I want to shift to a town like Panderkauda,” says Sarfaraz Qureshi in Yavatmal district. “I'm unable to sell any meat in the villages I work in.” Qureshi is a small operator who carries as...

Despite numerous special schemes and financial allocations, tribal communities in Hunsur taluk lead a life of poverty, marked by severe malnutrition. In Bettada haadi in the taluk, tribal residents grapple with appalling health conditions. Eight people in 28 families have tuberculosis, five have died in the past six years, and many others are malnourished and anaemic. They live in dilapidated houses that lack sanitation. Defunct borewells, broken pipes and non-functional streetlights...