The ubiquitousness of the mobile phone in urban areas and its spread in rural areas in India seem to have fed a notion — not substantiated by hard evidence — that there is a wide and deep market for such services in the countryside. Such a notion has remained largely unverified because of the scarcity of data on the extent of ownership of assets and access to services such as...

It's a Rs 50,000 crore annual business but those at the bottom of the supply chain -- mostly tribals -- make a mere Rs 4,000 crore out of it. The extraction of non-timber forest produce -- tuburs, leaves, seeds, plants and roots, besides other products from forest -- could soon become a bigger money-spinner for tribals. The government has set up a committee, which in three months will recommend how...

It was a classic case of David turning into Goliath almost overnight. Less than two days after the environment ministry rejected Vedanta’s bid to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills of Orissa, the odds swung heavily in favour of the ancient Dongria Kondh tribe when Rahul Gandhi congratulated them on their victory and promised to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their fight against injustice. In the process, he...

The Supreme Court on Thursday referred to a Constitution Bench for hearing an important question of law as to whether 100 per cent reservation in posts for teachers could be made in favour of Scheduled Tribes in schools in scheduled areas. A Bench, comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma, referred the appeal to Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia for posting it before a Constitution Bench. The special leave petition...

Ahead of the visit of the Central team to the Posco site scheduled for August 27-28, the Jagatsinghpur district officials today held interactions with the villagers and village Forest Rights Act (FRA) committees to explain about the purpose of the visit of the team. Sources said, the district administration has formed seven village level FRA committees at Dhinkia, Gobindpur, Nuagaon, Gadkujang, Polang, Noliasahi and Baynalkanda. The officials are believed to have...