Ranchi: It was a budget aimed at sweetening the bitter price rise pill. From cutting down VAT on diesel, sweets and ice- cream to making foodgrains available at Re 1 per kg for the poor, deputy chief minister Raghubar Das today presented an annual budget which focused on rural development, food security and social welfare. Chanting the “inclusive growth” mantra, Das, the BJP face in the Shibu Soren government, showed...

Faceless farmers who, by dint of hard work and enterprise, fought against odds to make a difference were recognised at a quiet ceremony here on Friday, the day Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented the budget in Parliament. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar took over an hour to distribute the awards and trophies to the small and marginal farmers from all parts of the country in the presence of Union Minister of...

Ten journalists have been selected to spend time with rural communities, understand their anxieties and specialise in covering the country’s rural crises, through an initiative of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. The recipients of the Inclusive Media Fellowship are: Mahim Pratap Singh of The Hindu (to work on the impact of distress migration on nutrition security and livelihoods in five districts of Orissa), Joaquim Fernandes of The...

The Kolkata Group is an independent initiative inspired and chaired by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. Once a year, it brings together participants drawn from various fields to explore the many inter-connections between inequality, deprivation, human development, and democracy. Its special focus has been on examining ways of advancing people’s health and education. The organisations supporting the Kolkata Group are UNICEF India, Professor Sen’s Pratichi Trust, and the Harvard-based Global...

What have the poor tribals of Orissa in common with the latest Hollywood hit Avatar? Apparently, there are uncanny similarities between the 3D animation movie and a documentary made on the Dongria Kondh tribe of Orissa by Survival International (SI). The ten-minute documentary is titled ‘Mine: story of a sacred mountain’ brings out the plight of the indigenous people. The SI has appealed to Avatar’s director James Cameron through media...