Has Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), one of India’s best-known peoples’ movements, run out of steam? Or is it still relevant in its new avatar as a force to reckon with? After all, the NBA has failed to achieve its primary goal of blocking big dams on Narmada, including the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat. The short answer to the question of NBA’s achievement is that it has forced a paradigm...

Norway says it is examining reports that Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus allegedly diverted millions of dollars of aid money from a bank. International Development Minister Erik Solheim said that it was "totally unacceptable that aid is used for other purposes than intended". A documentary maker has alleged that cash was diverted from Professor Yunus' Grameen Bank to other parts of Grameen. In a statement, the bank said that the allegations were false. It...

The issues relating to the victims of endosulfan, sprayed in the plantations of Kasargod district in Kerala, have snowballed once again. “Earthworms emerged from the soil, and, subsequently, died. Then birds came to eat the earthworms and they died as well.”   “Some termites were killed in a cotton farm sprayed with endosulfan. A frog fed on the dead termites, and was immobilised a few minutes later. An owl which flew over...

Media-corporate links are structural. But journalists, certainly entrenched ones, can choose whether they wish to be stenographers or not. It was gratifying to have the head of India's most reputed business house confirm the existence of crony capitalism in the country. True, others have believed this for 20 years but it carries more weight when Ratan Tata says so. As he put it in a television interview with admirable candour: “Yes,...

Asian governments, battling soaring food inflation, are pumping ever more resources into agriculture but will struggle to offset rapidly expanding demand in top consumers China and India. China, stung by consumer prices running at a 25-month peak, has been selling state stockpiles. It has also ordered banks to urgently offer support to farmers, an example of the sort of firepower these governments can deploy. With China and India also in many cases...