Toxin-mixed fuel may deter adulterators but will pose danger to users After indirectly helping adulterators for seven long months to make money by diverting the kerosene meant for BPL families for mixing it with diesel, oil marketing companies (OMCs) are now thinking of introducing chemical markers which are hazardous for health and environment. The OMCs argued that during the technical evaluation of the markers, the hazardous chemicals would be removed....

As far as natural resources like minerals, land and water are concerned, Jharkhand is among the richest States of India. Yet, its people are among the poorest. Mind you, almost 30 per cent of them are tribal. Out of the total population of 288.46 lakhs, 223.1 lakhs live in rural areas and only 65.36 lakhs are urban dwellers. Even a cursory glance is sufficient to convince that most of the...

Interview with Joan Mencher, an anthropologist who has worked in India for long on issues such as agriculture, ecology and caste.   JOAN P. MENCHER is a Professor emerita of Anthropology from the City University of New York’s Graduate Centre and Lehman College of the City University of New York. She is the chair of an embryonic not-for-profit organisation, The Second Chance Foundation, which works to support rural grass-roots organisations...

Patna, Dec. 6: The Bihar government has rushed a two-member fact-finding team to Ludhiana in Punjab where migrant labourers from the state clashed with police and local people over the administration’s alleged failure to provide security to workers. “The team, comprising a joint labour commissioner and deputy labour commissioner, was sent to Ludhiana last evening to find out facts about the incident and talk to the Punjab government officials on the...

People of dalit communities in the Gadarwara sub-division of district Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh are on the brink of starvation as they are facing harassment, economic sanctions and social boycott because they have refused to remove animal carcasses. A fact finding team of civil society organisations says that dalits at many places have been ‘imprisoned’ in their own houses as all entry and exit points have been blocked by the...