Bihar has been in the news recently for recording an average growth rate of 11.3 per cent for the period between 2004 and 2009. Much has been written about the quality of governance and the improved state of roads. This is indeed commendable, and no mean achievement, for a State that had virtually become a “development outcast”. I was pleasantly surprised to note on a recent trip to Bihar the...

A United Nations report titled The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples says the indigenous people and tribes worldwide are facing extinction and exploitation due to threats of displacement and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources. It takes note of the displacement of thousands of families of the Santhal Adivasis in the Indian State of Jharkhand as a result of extraction of minerals, without proper compensation or economic security. The...

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has sanctioned Rs.1.15 crore from its Farmers Technology Transfer Fund to the National Agro Foundation (NAF), NABARD’s Managing Director K.G. Karmakar announced on Saturday. Speaking at a function in Illedu village, Kancheepuram, to observe the birth centenary of the former statesman, C. Subramanian, he said the funds had been sanctioned to the NAF to help farmers access new technologies. NABARD was interested...

The aftershock of the global financial crisis threatens to deprive millions of children in the world’s poorest countries of an education, the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report warns. With 72 million children still out of school, a combination of slower economic growth, rising poverty and budget pressures could erode the gains of the past decade. “While rich countries nurture their economic recovery, many poor countries face the imminent prospect...

At least two cases of hunger deaths have been reported from Jabalpur district of MP and Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan in the past few weeks. The two states are run by different political parties-- the BJP and the Congress-- but there is quite a lot common in the victims’ circumstances. Both families were among the poorest in their villages but were not included in the BPL list and both the...