While the state government’s attempt to illegally dam the Kalu river in rural Murbad, Thane, is being challenged in court, it now emerges that the government has made false claims in its affidavit — about the total number of villages that will be affected, the number of people who will be displaced, and the amount of land that will be submerged. To make it all worse, work on the dam...

The Planning Commission's Approach Paper to the Twelfth Plan sticks with the neoliberal agenda despite claims of inclusive growth. INCLUSIVE was one word that came up time and again in the early announcements of the Planning Commission on the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. “Faster, Sustainable and More Inclusive Growth” was the slogan coined for the Plan and there was the promise of widespread consultations as never before as part of the processes...

The Planning Commission's poverty straightjacket is but one of a series of obstacles faced by “aspirants” to the BPL status. Nothing illustrates the absurdity of current food policies more poignantly than the plight of Dablu Singh's family in Latehar district, Jharkhand. About two years ago Dablu, a young Adivasi who survived mainly from casual labour, fell from a roof at work and broke his back. He is paralysed for life and...

The re-classification of villages and towns, and the changes this brings to the nation's rural-urban profile, happens every decade. Yet only Census 2011 shows us a huge turnaround, with urban India adding more people (91 million) than rural India (90.6 million) for the first time in 90 years. Clearly, something huge has happened in the last 10 years that drives those numbers. And that is: huge, uncharted migrations of people...

According to the Maharashtra government's own figures, 18,486 children in the age group of 0-6 years have died of malnutrition this year alone (Jan-August 2011). The figure is quite high, say health ministry sources. In 2010, 12,792 children had died of hunger and malnutrition during the same period. But this year, 5,694 more babies than last year have starved to death. Most of the dead babies are Adivasi Children. The...