Meritorious students from 27 districts to be covered this financial year Monthly pension of freedom fighters enhanced from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 8,000 The Assam government will provide scholarships of Rs. 2,000 each to 2 lakh meritorious students belonging to tea-tribe communities, the Scheduled Tribes, the Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, as well as other communities living in the border areas, chars (sand isles of the Brahmaputra river) and other economically and...

Food rights activists demand universalisation and decentralisation of PDS A large number of food rights activists staged a protest outside the godown of the Food Corporation of India in Rourkela on Sunday demanding equitable distribution of food grains and universalisation and decentralisation of the public distribution system (PDS). More than 1,500 activists, academicians and those involved in various people's movements participated in the agitation against the rotting of food grains in...

The implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act in Madhya Pradesh faces a host of problems due to a strange interpretation of the Act by the Forest Department. While the department's opposition to the Act is no secret — several petitions have been filed against it in the Supreme Court by retired forest officials or organisations run by them — new information obtained...

According to a new Oxford University study, 55 percent of India’s population of 1.1 billion, or 645 million people, are living in poverty. Using a newly-developed index, the study found that about one-third of the world’s poor live in India. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) has been developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as a more precise and comprehensive means of...

Recently, Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai wrote to the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department, expressing concern at alleged atrocities committed on tribals. While top officials of the Forest Department have rejected the “allegations” as baseless and ill-informed, a recent case in the Barwani district justifies Mr. Pillai's concerns. When Valsingh Sastia, an Adivasi, decided to repair the roof of his house before the monsoon, he had little idea that it would land him...