-Livemint.com It is important to give preference to those approaches that help the poor the most for every rupee spent, no matter how they are labelled Sometimes in life, it is clear that the direct approach isn’t the best one. This is true in many areas, even when it comes to policymaking. Take, as an example, the area of extreme poverty. It seems logical, at first, that the most effective response should...

-Frontline.in The women-led climate-resilient farming model created by Swayam Shikshan Prayog in drought-hit Marathwada has yielded encouraging results and is worthy of emulation across the country. “LOOK at our quinoa. It has grown so well,” says a beaming Shailaja Narwade from Masia village near Solapur in interior Maharashtra. Shailaja has planted the traditional South American plant not for consumption but in order to harvest its seeds. “Quinoa seeds are very valuable...

-TheWire.in Fearing that their land will be taken away by the government, over 5,000 farmers from Bhavnagar have sought permission for mass euthanasia along with their families. Bhavnagar (Gujarat): On April 1, about 100 heavily armed police personnel marched into a nondescript village, Badi in Ghogha taluka of Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district, and fired tear gas shells and lathi-charged locals, injuring about ten persons, including women, and detained more than 50. All...

-TheWire.in The Wire meets families of 16 people who lost their lives in extra-judicial killings by the police on the suspicion of smuggling cows in the Mewat region of Haryana. Nuh (Haryana): On the wintry night of December 6, 2017, as Shareef lay on the bed in his courtyard in Salaheri village in Nuh, flashes of memory from 25 years ago kept disrupting his sleep. He recalled how his friend Aarif was...

-The Hindu Farming must be treated as a market-based enterprise and made viable on its own terms The week-long farmers’ march which reached Mumbai earlier this month, on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930, was unprecedented in many ways. It was mostly silent and disciplined, mostly leaderless, non-disruptive and non-violent, and well organised. It received the sympathy of middle class city dwellers, food and water from bystanders, free medical services...