-The Telegraph Bhopal: The turbaned, white-haired, kurta-dhoti-wearing "Tauji" figures are there too, but one outstanding feature of the current farmer agitation in Madhya Pradesh are its jeans-clad, smartphone-wielding spearheads. If the veteran "Kakkaji" Shiv Kumar Sharma is the public face of the movement, which lacks a central leadership, much of the spadework is being done by a band of young, bilingual, stats-savvy and largely apolitical agriculture graduates. Their leader Kedar Sirohi, who is...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Lethal gases from Jharia's coalfields fire continue to wreck havoc a century later -Valay Singh
-The Economic Times 5:20 am. Twelve-year-old Sandeep rubs his eyes. Prodded by his mother Savitri, he reluctantly steps out of his two-room mud house. Together, they head out in the darkness. Savitri walks purposefully, Sandeep trudges along. They are going to the opencast coal mine that is a 10-minute walk from their village Ghansaddi. On the way, they are joined by scores of people. In a curving file, they descend the...
More »Punjab opens its heart - and purse - to farmers -Sanjeeb Mukherjee & Archis Mohan
-Business Standard Instead of addressing systemic problems in agriculture, farm politics in the state is about how much money the government can offer the farmer as a dole The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), led by Parkash Singh Badal and son Sukhbir, was in a dilemma a year before the 2012 Assembly elections in Punjab. The Akalis had ruled Punjab since 2007 but no party had ever returned to power for a second...
More »Silent woodcutters’ will see progress at last, courtesy Madras HC -A Subramani
-The Times of India CHENNAI: Tribals of Kalrayan Hills and Jawad Hills in Vellore district are called 'silent woodcutters' — and not for nothing. They are masters of art of tree felling. They can trek, cut trees with barely any noise and bear away the logs on their heads in a matter of hours. It is for this skill that they are in great demand among red sanders mafia, centred in the...
More »Shifting Sands: How Rural Women in India Took Mining into their Own Hands -Stella Paul
-IPS News GUNTUR, India: Thirty-seven-year-old Kode Sujatha stands in front of a hut with a palm-thatched roof, surrounded by a group of men shouting angrily and jostling one another for a spot at the front of the crowd. Each of the boatmen, who carry sand mined from a nearby river to the shore every day, wants to be paid before the others. Sujatha stares hard at them, holds up a piece of paper...
More »