Garhwali villagers resist new central farming plans, stick by age-old ways attuned to nature Jardhargaon is a sprawling cluster of villages tucked away in the Himalayan folds in Tehri district of Garhwal. A panoramic view of pine- and sal-covered mountains, green and freshly showered, surrounds us, as little streams spout out of boulders at every turn of the winding hill roads and clouds hang like a dark cover overhead. But...

-The Indian Express   Having lost around 50 per cent male weavers to migration and schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the carpet industry in Bhadohi and surrounding areas now wants women to be trained as weavers. “Women weavers are more likely to stay put at homes, whether they are married or unmarried. So training them would be good investment,” said secretary All-India Carpet Manufacturers Association, Abdul Hazi. The...

-MensXP.com While everyone has been animatedly supporting Anna Hazare's fight against corruption, people seem to have forgotten who the people are who actually led to this situation. The peak of irony was when Anna was, allegedly, lodged in the same jail that housed the people who were responsible for two of the biggest scams in the country ever. How must the authorities have felt when they saw Raja and Kalmadi fill their...

The best thing about Indian politicians is that they make you feel you are a better person. Not surprisingly, Indians often derive their moral confidence not through the discomfort of examining their own actions, but from regarding themselves as decent folks looted by corrupt, villainous politicians. This is at the heart of a self-righteous middle-class uprising against political corruption, a television news drama that reached its inevitable climax in Delhi on...

-IANS   Eminent agriculture scientist and a member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), M.S. Swaminathan, has cautioned against the government's plan to replace subsidised food with cash under the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA). "The government's plan to replace subsidised ration with cash under the public distribution system (PDS) is faulty. It will lead to low procurement and less production subsequently. This will be bad for Indian agriculture," Swaminathan...