-Hindustan Times Both, the farmers who undertook the march and those who went on strike, represent the wide spectrum of the state’s ongoing agrarian and rural distress. Last year, on June 1, thousands of farmers in Maharashtra went on an unprecedented strike, refusing to sell their produce to markets and cutting off supply of daily necessities – milk, vegetables and fruits – to cities. The two-day strike forced the Devendra Fadnavis-led...

-TheWire.in Examples from Jharkhand, Karnataka and other places make a strong case for kitchen gardens in more parts of the country. Pali Biruli lives in Gondamara, a tribal village in Saraikela district of Jharkhand. When we stepped into the courtyard of her home to have a glass of water, the beauty of the surrounding greenery surprised us. Within a small place. she and her family members had managed to grow papaya, mango,...

-TheWire.in Environmentalist and water management expert Ravi Chopra says river inter-linking will sow the seeds for future conflicts between states. There is nothing new about the proposed river-interlinking project being pushed by the government, and this ‘unnecessary excess’ of a project will create more problems than it promises to solve, says environmentalist and water management expert, Dr Ravi Chopra, the director of People’s Science Institute, Dehradun and a managing trustee of the...

-The Times of India There is a saying in Harendragarh, a tribal village 50 km from Rajasthan’s Banswara town, that if a man eats the last rotla (chapatti) he will fall ill. So by default the last rotla, thinner than the rest and made from leftover dough along with the stale remains of the dal or vegetable made that day, would land on the plate of the woman of the house....

-The Telegraph   Cash-for-ration going directly to beneficiary bank accounts 'a disaster'   Ranchi: Bhashan nahin, ration do (give no speeches, give us ration). DBT hatao, ration bachao (remove direct benefit transfer, save ration), Raghubar-Saryu hai-hai (down with chief minister Raghubar Roy and food minister Saryu Roy). Holding such banners and posters, around 1,000 residents from 13 panchayats of Nagri on Monday undertook a 15km padyatra (rally on foot) from Kathalmore to Raj Bhavan...