Only seven states pay average wages of Rs100 or more per day to workers under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s flagship rural welfare programme, despite the Congress party, which heads the government, promising to make Rs100 every worker’s entitlement last year. The UPA had fixed the daily wage of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)—which promises at least 100 days of work annually to one...

Why is India's most socially developed state - and one of the developing world's most advanced regions - an economic laggard? This question about Kerala, known all over the world for its lush landscapes, sun-drenched beaches and idyllic backwaters, has been a subject of intense debate among economists and social scientists. Kerala defies all stereotypes of a "socially backward" Indian state - swathes of people living in abject poverty, men outnumbering...

People in the southern state of Kerala are the heaviest drinkers in India, and sales of alcohol are rising fast. The BBC's Soutik Biswas examines why. Jacob Varghese says he began drinking when he was nine years old, sipping on his father's unfinished whisky and brandy in glass tumblers. It's a terrifying story of a descent into alcoholism for this 40-year-old health inspector. At school, he consumed cheap local liquor. He...

ON February 12, Meham town in Rohtak district, Haryana, saw a citizens’ convention that was unusual in more than one sense. First, it was being held from the ramparts of the Meham Chaubisi Chabootara, a platform reserved for members of the Meham panchayat (a conglomeration of 24 villages, better known as the Meham Chaubisi). Second, the meeting was not dominated by any one caste. Third, it was a congregation of...

A three-hour drive from Delhi a medieval drama is playing out. A khap — or caste — panchayat in Haryana’s Bhiwani district has asked a man and his family to leave the village because he has married a woman of the same “gotra”. The family sought police protection after the panchayat threatened a social boycott and pronounced a ban on the sale of their land, saying that it would be...