Faulty procurement, rising farm inputs force West Bengal farmers to commit suicide LONG known as farmer friendly, West Bengal is now making headlines for farmers’ suicides. Reportedly 31 farmers, including landless farm labourers and small traders of agriculture produce, in the state took their lives between October last year and January. Twenty-one of the 31 deaths are from the state’s rice bowl Burdwan district. And this is probably a reason the spate...

Conservation measures have taken away the traditional livelihoods of nomadic tribes in Karnataka. AT a short distance from the world famous monuments at Hampi is the village of Hulihaidar in the fertile region of the “rice bowl of Karnataka” in Gangavathi taluk in Koppal district. Local residents say it was an important town in the Vijayanagara empire (1336-1646 C.E.) and the seat of a local lord. Today it is home to...

Poverty is concentrated in the informal sectors of the Indian economy, with people in these occupations amongst the worst affected from the pernicious Licence Quota Raid Raj. This is illustrated by the sarkari controls that trap the livelihoods of some of our nano entrepreneurs - cycle-rickshaw owners and pullers - in a web of illegality. Cycle-rickshaws are an inexpensive mode of commute in many cities, and do not cause any...

It would be an understatement to say that India Against Corruption leader Arvind Kejriwal, a key member of Team Anna, is a dejected man. After stirring the nation last year with his anti-corruption for the most part of 2011, Kisan Baburao 'Anna' Hazare saw the movement fizzle out when he staged a fast in Mumbai in December. He has since returned to his village to recuperate from an undisclosed illness even...

Not only are the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act routinely violated in Chhattisgarh, the adivasis are also short-changed on legislative representation and reservations in government jobs. As the state cedes land to capital while reducing the adivasis to an ornamental presence, there is increasing assertion of adivasi identity, born out of class predicaments and experiences of displacement as much as notions of indigeneity. Supriya Sharma...