Model community forestry initiatives in Orissa are defying Forest Department efforts to control and exploit the region’s forests. ‘Heaven is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees / And hell is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees with a forest guard in it!’ Thus goes a song of the Muria Adivasis in the forests of Bastar in central India. Encapsulated in this simple expression, however, is...

With the threat of a failed monsoon and an impending drought, the need for public works and for greater numbers of workers will arise in many states, says National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy Despite all its seminal achievements, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act is at the receiving end of the most controversial critiques any government programme has received so far. We could perhaps invert this to say...

-The Times of India HYDERABAD: A chunk of kidney patients in the state are under 40 years of age. Worse, most of the cases undergoing dialysis treatment or even kidney transplants are again in their thirties. This disturbing trend in AP will be analyzed as part of a marathon study that aims to unearth the magnitude of and reasons behind the alarming rise of chronic kidney diseases (CKD) among middle-aged people in...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

-The Hindu Saving the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) — the centrepiece of UPA-I’s achievements in the social welfare sector — from its many critics in government and the media who view it as a drain on the exchequer will head the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC)’s agenda in the coming months. At a meeting of the reconstituted NAC on Friday, its members discussed the role a re-energised...