Indigenous groups and Dalits continue to be at the bottom in most indicators of well-being, the Muslims and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) occupy the middle rung, while forward caste Hindus and other minority religions are at the top. The “Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition” survey has found this. These patterns are seen in a variety of indicators, including household incomes, poverty rates, landownership and agricultural...

Though Palakkad district in Kerala, where the Coca Cola plant is situated is considered as the ‘rice bowl of Kerala’, a part of the district falling in the rain shadow region of the Western Ghats is drought prone. Plachimada, where the Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCBPL) factory was set up had been classified ‘arable’. The villagers are predominantly landless agricultural labourers with almost 80 percent of the population...

Kancha Ilaiah’s Post-Hindu India should be essential reading for all who get panicky about Mayawati’s brand of Dalit politics. Unlike the bsp supremo’s bid to empower marginalised groups through the levers of electoral democracy by wooing a wider ‘sarvajan samaj’, Ilaiah wants to launch an all-out civil war between Dalit Bahujans and Hindu society. This is an angry, provocative book written by a leading Dalit thinker, who is convinced that...

Vedanta Aluminium has violated forest conservation guidelines and failed to follow the Forest Rights Act in letter and in spirit at a proposed bauxite mine project in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa, according to a report submitted by a three-member team to the Union Environment and Forests Ministry. Following allegations about the project earlier this year, the Ministry constituted the team — with a forestry official, a former government wildlife official...

BD Sharma is one of India's foremost experts on tribal issues. He has served as collector of undivided Bastar district in Chhattisgarh and commissioner for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and has campaigned extensively to protect the rights of tribals. Currently, the coordinator of Bharat Jan Andolan, a network of grass-roots organisations, Sharma tells that current notions of development are at the root of the Maoist insurgency: What has changed...