-Oxfam India Blog Hari Bandhu Kanhar (45 years) is a Gond tribal of Jhankarmunda village, district Bolangir, Odisha whose family recently received legal title over his forest land under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. On being asked about the difference of being landless and having a land title, he shared that the biggest difference is that he is not hounded by the fear of being evicted from his land. Narratives such as...

-The New Indian Express HYDERABAD (Telengana): People of the Dakkali caste are one of the 193 communities that are categorised as Denotified Tribes or (DNTs). They are forced to beg exclusively from the Madiga Community, one of the Scheduled Castes. Banala Mangesh, a Dakkali shares how his community is discriminated against, not just by the privileged but also, the Madigas who have been subject to atrocities for centuries. “We are not eligible...

-The Economic Times One month after demonetisation, the Supreme Court is hearing several public interest petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the “demonetisation notification”, which declared that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes would no longer be legal tender post midnight on November 8, 2016. The preamble to the notification stated that its objective was to eliminate fake currency used for financing terrorism and to address the problem of “unaccounted money” in...

-The Hindu The government has declared an incentive package to encourage non-cash payments for fuel, new insurance policies from public sector firms, train tickets and highway toll, among other things. For credit and debit card transactions up to Rs.2,000, the Reserve Bank of India has relaxed its stringent two-factor authentication requirement, and service tax stands waived. Taken together, these moves to encourage cashless payments are significant not just because they can...

-Frontline.in Interview with Utsa Patnaik, professor emerita of economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. By T.K. RAJALAKSHMI THE FALLOUT of the decision of the National Democratic Alliance government to demonetise currency of higher denominations has been felt across all sections of people. There are concerns that it will lead to an overall economic slowdown given the acute shortage of currency for industrial and agricultural operations. The impact on agriculture and those dependent on agriculture...