I got a call around midnight in the Delhi summer. It was Lingaram, the young Muria adivasi from Sameli village in Dantewada, then studying in Noida’s International Media Institute of India. Linga’s misfortunes never seem to end: first he was accused of helping the Maoists, then tortured in the police station toilet, forced to be a special police officer, then released thanks to a habeas corpus petition. In a few months,...

‘It is correct that... Kopa Kunjam tried to save me from the Naxalites,’ said Jhadi Nagesh in the sessions court of Bijapur, Bastar. Maoists kidnapped two men on June 2, 2009. One, Punem Hoonga, was killed the other, Jhadi Nagesh, was released. On December 10, Kunjam was arrested for the murder of Hoonga, who the Maoists killed. Nagesh, the man who was released unharmed by the Maoists, testified in court that...

Managing our soil and water resources in a sustainable and equitable manner needs a new political vision, which can be expressed through the proposed Land Acquisition Bill and the recently formed Global Soil Partnership. On the basis of a proposal I had made three years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a Global Soil Partnership for Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation at a multi-stakeholder conference, held...

With skewed sex ratios it is difficult to find a local mate Decades of unchecked sex-selective abortions have made the once fertile States of Punjab and Haryana suffer a drought of brides, making human-trafficking a lucrative and expanding trade. Often projected as a voluntary marriage, every year, thousands of young women and girls are lured into the idea of a happy married life with a rich man in Punjab or Haryana....

In the name of God, hapless girls are still being made to become devadasis which in stark terms means being Raped by the priests, secretly auctioned to brothels and finally dying of AIDS. Deebashree Mohanty speaks to a few of these unfortunate women who died everyday of their life for a farce called service of the God I was nine when I got married to my village deity Yellamma. The mahajan,...