A maid hired from a tribal zone without the panchayat’s sanction could bring a legal case of human trafficking if amendments planned to a poorly enforced law are carried through. The changes are proposed in the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (Pesa), which aims to give tribal communities in 94 districts greater powers over land and resources. The zones are in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand,...

Even as the media celebrate the Mercedes Benz deal in the Marathwada region as a sign of “rural resurgence,” the latest data show that 17,368 farmers killed themselves in the year of the “resurgence.” When businessmen from Aurangabad in the backward Marathwada region bought 150 Mercedes Benz luxury cars worth Rs. 65 crore at one go in October, it grabbed media attention. The top public sector bank, State Bank of India,...

The retail prices of onions and tomato largely remained unchanged on Saturday although the price of garlic fell by up to Rs. 40 a kg, thanks to better supplies. It is expected that the availability of these essential items will improve in three weeks when the late kharif crop arrives in the market. According to reports from the four metros, onion prices remained stable at Rs. 50-60 a kg, while tomato...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Saturday denied that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had sought his explanations on the rising prices of onions and other agricultural commodities. In a brief chat with the media persons on the sidelines of the two-day “Coop Core – 2010,” heralding the nationwide launch of the core banking solutions (CBS) for the urban cooperative banks, which began here on Saturday, Mr. Pawar said he too had...

The government's flagship programme MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Emolyment Guarantee Act) has created a source of additional income for families living below the poverty line in tribal areas of Rajasthan but has failed to check distress migration as minimum 100 days of employment assured under the Act is not provided to all workers. Many villagers in Dungarpur, Udaipur and Rajsamand districts claim that the scheme is mostly attracting women and...