-The Tribune Agrarian society vs a non-agrarian economy poses a huge political challenge. JUST how many farmers are there in India? This is not merely a statistical question. This is a question of policy and political significance. We have all grown up reading about India as an agrarian economy, with a majority of its population engaged in farming. Does that continue to be the case? Or has the number of farmers declined...

-Scroll.in How does the project qualify as ‘public purpose’ and does it violate legal safeguards for Santhal areas? Part 2 of a Scroll.in investigation on the Godda plant. In the villages of Motiya and Gangta in Jharkhand’s Godda district, tractors and SUVs race down a recently widened dirt road. Even in the clouds of dust they kick off, it is hard to miss the fence stretching across kilometres of farmland, with cows...

-The Indian Express Closure of Sterlite plant says something about our collective morality: Death, violence move governments more than reason and evidence It took a brazen exercise of what sociologists since Max Weber refer to as the state’s “monopoly of violence” by Tamil Nadu authorities to bring our attention to a problem that had been affecting the local residents of Tuticorin for over two decades. Since this tragic incident, it took hardly...

-The Telegraph Washington: The Supreme Court of America on Monday agreed to consider reviving a lawsuit by Indian villagers seeking to hold a Washington-based international financial institution responsible for widespread environmental damage they blame on a Power Plant it financed. The justices will hear an appeal by the villagers of a lower court ruling that the International Finance Corp (IFC) was immune from such lawsuits under federal law. IFC, part of the World...

-The Indian Express Government must be circumspect about Cauvery dispute resolution mechanism. The government has been wise in not pressing the panic button on the Cauvery. In fact, the concept of a Cauvery Board is a flawed one. Lawyers normally have a limited understanding of water issues. We have a lot of experience in India of tribunals delaying projects for decades. Some experts have suggested highly centralised systems of dispute resolution...