-The Hindustan Times   Rambai, a lean and sprightly 34-year-old, has never been the quiet sort. So when her neighbours at the Rokra hamlet were asked to choose a community health worker (CHW) — called Mitanin (friend) in Chhattisgarh — they knew that Rambai would be an ideal candidate. “We selected her because she could communicate well and interact with officials with ease, even though she has studied till Class 5,” said...

'Erratic rainfall and rising input costs forcing farmers to migrate' “Unable to clear a loan of Rs 2 lakh, my son committed suicide. I had to sell my ancestral house and cattle to repay the loan,” says Lakshmi Devi, 48, of Pathakotha Cheruvu village in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district. Devi's woes did not end with the repayment of loan. Managing her farm is becoming increasingly difficult, partly because it is expensive,...

A well-established nexus between coal smugglers, Maoists and a section of police has ensured illegal mining is a thriving trade in the coal belt and it was no different in Bokaro today, barely 24 hours after a cave-in led to the death of five women at Jhungurghuttu, just about 400 metre away from Chandrapura police station. According to an intelligence bureau report, coal mined illegally from areas in Chandankyari, Chandrapura and...

Jamshedpur, Oct. 29: For 29 years, men and women of a village in a rebel-hit block have been staying awake to guard the trees. It could have been another forest conservation legend like the Chipko Movement in the 1970s, where Himachali women embraced trees to prevent commercial felling. But here, the unique effort of Pindrasol, a village under Ghurabandha block, 84km from Jamshedpur, is a tucked-away secret in the hinterland, though...

While the state government’s attempt to illegally dam the Kalu river in rural Murbad, Thane, is being challenged in court, it now emerges that the government has made false claims in its affidavit — about the total number of villages that will be affected, the number of people who will be displaced, and the amount of land that will be submerged. To make it all worse, work on the dam...