Displacement has become a leading source of discontent and impoverishment in India and many other developing countries. In the case of some vulnerable groups like tribals, it is perhaps the leading source of poverty and discontent resulting in widespread violence in several places. Thus policies which promote large-scale displacement not only increase poverty, these are also a threat to peace and democracy. Unfortunately it has been taken for granted by many...

The spectre of inflation has returned to haunt India. It is not even six months since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government returned to power but its inability to control food prices is arguably its single biggest failure till now. The inflation rate will eventually come down sometime in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future and the government will surely take credit for bringing prices down as and when that happens. But...

New Delhi : Land belonging to Scheduled Castes and/or Scheduled Tribes will be the first to be earmarked for works under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and once this is saturated, only then land belonging to small and marginal farmers will be taken up. These are the amended guidelines issued by the Rural Development Ministry after protests that expansion of works under NREGA would undermine its benefits to Dalits....

Houses in villages are deserted as over 1,50,000 farmers have left in the last one month Chhattarpur (M.P.): Even as the Centre-State political tussle over Bundelkhand goes on, drought-hit Chhattarpur district of the region is on its way to becoming the epicentre of exodus. While farmers have been migrating from the region for the past three years, this year every day thousands of people are making an exodus, induced by...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is confident that the NREGS is his best bet to offset the drought but many grassroots activists are unsure of the scheme’s effectiveness, especially after some recent amendments. While the drought has spread to 246 districts, a heated debate rages on the poor peoples’ entitlements versus rural asset formation, even though in theory the two positions appear complementary. 14 organisations throughout the country are up in arms...