-The Telegraph   Supaul: A college graduate hailing from a farmers' family, Anil Kumar Yadav (32) roamed around in Delhi and Mumbai in search of a job only to return empty-handed, about three years ago. The very idea of getting engaged in the family's traditional vocation was "nightmarish" to him. Anil, a resident of Samda Chowk village under Basantpur block of Supaul district, around 350km northeast of Patna, today owns a spanking motorcycle,...

-The New Indian Express   Back in 1989, the area near Chennakothapalli village of Anantapur (the second driest area in India) in Andhra Pradesh was a wasteland. Till C K Ganguly (Bablu) and Mary Vattamattam chanced upon it in 1991 and saw its immense potential to blossom into a green paradise. The couple, along with friend John D'Souza, then bought 32 acres of this barren land. Inspired by Japanese author Masanobu Fufuoka's seminal...

-MainstreamWeekly.net   A fact-finding team, comprising Rajan Singh (Actionaid), Ram Kumar (Dynamic Action Group), Ramdular (National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights-NCdhr), Neetu (Humsafar Support Centre for Women), Shubhangi Singh (AALI) and Shilpi Aggraval (SAKAR Sanstha, Bareilly), visited Katra Sahadatganj village in Dattaganj Block in UP's Badaun district where the abduction, gang rape and murder of two minor girls allegedly by three brothers Pappu Yadav, Avdesh Yadav, Urvesh Yadav, sons of Vir Yadav,...

-The Tribune   Jind: There's a novel experiment underway in an acre-and-a-half at Jind's Nidana village. A group of farmers, most of them illiterate, are out to prove a point to scientists and experts: agriculture is possible without pesticides and more profitable than with the use of pesticides. Scientists of the Delhi-based National Centre for Integrated Pest Management New Delhi (NCIPM), with the help of the state Agriculture Department, have taken an acre-and-a-half...

-The Hindu   Gujarat Dalit women's cooperative is fighting for entitlement to land it has reclaimed VAUTHA (AHMEDABAD DISTRICT, Gujarat): It's early morning, but the summer sun is already beating down on the row of women busy with their hoes. In Gujarat, known for the cooperative dairy movement, a group of Dalit women farmers from Vautha village in Dholka block of Ahmedabad district are pioneering the demand for land entitlement, for a one of...