Punjab farmers have been struck a double blow on the eve of the paddy transplantation season, which starts tomorrow. Reliant on migrant labour to transplant paddy on 26 lakh hectares, they are witnessing a few arrivals on trains coming in from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Farmers also do not have the option of falling back on mechanised transplantation with the experiment launched with full fanfare by the state government last...
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An endless fight against manual scavenging by Vrinda Sharma
Dalit women lead unhygienic lives for wages of Rs.15 a month Caste hierarchy prevents women from doing any other job The Railways and municipalities are the biggest employers Each morning a group of Dalit women step outside their homes to “fulfil their social role” of cleaning dry latrines with their brooms and bare hands. They then carry human excrement in pots and baskets on their heads. Braving the worst possible form of caste...
More »Remote Indian state set for development
A new drive has started to bring development to the remote north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. In a letter from the region, the BBC's former India correspondent Mark Tully says there are fears that it will undermine the traditional tribal culture of the area and alienate the population. Driving from the east of Arunachal Pradesh to its oldest town, Pasighat, I was made all too aware of the state's underdevelopment....
More »Villagers build own railway station by Sumi Sukanya
For 25 years, residents of Tajnagar village near Gurgaon lobbied for a railway station in their village. When their demand was not met, the villagers decided to take matters in their own hands — they pooled in Rs 21 lakh and built a railway station on their own. On Tuesday, the result of their efforts — perhaps the first railway station in the country on which the Railways didn’t have...
More »Social Banditry by Ramachandra Guha
The novelist and critic, C.S. Lewis, said he had no time for those who thought that since they had read a book once, they had no need to read it again. The great works of literature were to read again and again. The urge to go back to a book was prompted sometimes by aesthetics, the desire to savour once more its artful or elegant prose; and, at other times,...
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