New Delhi: The Vidarbha farmer's widow whose plight was highlighted by Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi in Parliament, has complained about the Congress led-government in Maharashtra to BJP's Rajnath Singh. With Rahul Gandhi citing her example, Kalavati soon became the face of struggling widows of Vidharbha's suicide zone in Maharashtra where thousands of farmers have died in the last one decade. Kalavati's grouse is that 4,000 other widows have not been given...

In Uttar Pradesh's most impoverished region, Bundelkhand, government officials feed off not just the living but also the dead. Headlines Today has exposed how corrupt officials exploit the grieving families of farmers, who have committed suicide.   In a visit to Bundelkhand in 2008, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi repeated a phrase borrowed from his father Rajiv Gandhi: "Out of 100 paise, only 15 paise reaches the poor".   While travelling through this dustbowl...

The passport office in Hyderabad reported the highest number of passport applications recorded in Indian history (at least 450,000) and it expects an increase of 15-20% this year Jamuna Kunta sits stiffly in a plush red chair at the Hyderabad press club, holding her head proudly erect as she quietly recounts the events leading to her husband’s suicide in Dubai. A farmer from Karimnagar, a rural district in Andhra Pradesh, her husband...

Cash transfers cannot and should not replace the public provision of essential goods and services, but rather supplement them. Cash transfers are the latest fad of the international development industry, as the preferred strategy for poverty reduction. And now Indian policymakers are busy catching up. The idea was mooted in the Government's Economic Survey for 2010-11, and the Finance Minister made an explicit announcement in his budget speech for replacing some...

On the eve of the Union Budget on Sunday, thousands of farmers and hundreds of Farm Widows staged a strong protest at Pandharkawda in Yavatmal district by hanging effigies of union finance minister of finance Pranab Mukherjee and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar. The protesters wanted to draw attention of the government towards its 'anti-cotton farmer policies.' They demanded lifting of ban on cotton export, a bailout package for dying cotton...