-Hindustan Times A migrant labourer not long ago, 37-year-old Sitaram Majhi is now a successful farmer. As Odisha’s agricultural fields starve for water due to drought conditions this year, Majhi never had a problem watering his crop in Kharamal village in Bargarh district’s parched Paikmal block, more than 500 km from Bhubaneswar. Equipped with chahala – a small traditional water harvesting structure – and a vermi-compost pit the three-acre farm, on which he...

-The Hindu ‘Safe Travels!’ we wish those travelling to distant places. It is an unhappy situation that in India, we need to wish many a woman ‘safe travels’ as she steps out to work. Well publicised instances of violence against women working in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector during workplace-related travel as well as some not so broadly-known experiences of women in blue collar work, point to a problem that...

-Deccan Herald Twenty years, 35 villages and over 10 lakh surviving trees. Harshavardhan Sheelavant narrates a community initiative in Dharwad district that has converted hundreds of acres of fallow land into green orchards and transformed the lives of farmers. It was another monsoon day without rains. But the dry spell didn’t quench the spirit of residents of Belligatti village in Dharwad district who assembled near a small hillock on the outskirts of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Can state govt make law fixing minimum education qualification as an eligibility criteria for contesting local body election? The Supreme Court on Monday expressed concern over state government making law on the issue saying that it would bar a major chunk of the population from contesting elections. A bench of justices J Chelameswar and AM SAPre said that bringing such law would deprive more than 50 percent...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the Haryana panchayati raj law stipulating educational qualifications for contesting the forthcoming local polls, which according to the petitioners created an insurmountable barrier for an overwhelming majority of women and Dalits. After hearing senior advocate Kirti Singh, a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and A M SAPre stayed the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015, which mandated educational qualifications for...