Former plant director backs demands for compensation and jobs Agitating residents of villages in the vicinity of the Kaiga atomic power station have got support from unexpected quarters. The former project director of the plant, Paramahamsa Tewari, who helped to set up the installation in the early 1990s, has expressed support for the demands of the ‘struggle committee of villagers within five km of Kaiga plant,' whose protest at Karwar entered the...

Last month, the turmeric farmers of Maharashtra's Sangli district found themselves in a desperate situation. Oversupply had resulted in prices crashing in the local turmeric market, Asia's biggest, threatening their livelihood. And with several thousands growing the commodity across Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, any meaningful strategy to halt the price crash meant involving a sizeable number of farmers.  That's when local farmer Atul Salunkhe, 31, had a brainwave. How...

-The Economic Times   In 2007, 27-year-old Kaushalendra from Bihar shunned the placement frenzy, which would see many of his colleagues earn fat salaries, in favour of a more homespun alternative: Selling fresh vegetables on a push cart to residents of his hometown Nalanda.  Putting together whatever money he had, Kaushalendra began the venture in 2008 and soon started doing well. People didn't mind paying a little more if they saw value in...

West Bengal: An agrarian crisis looms over the State as farmers commit suicide in spite of a bumper crop. THE topic of suicide figured repeatedly in Safar Molla's conversations with his neighbours a few days before his death. The 18-year-old marginal farmer from Kaltikuri village in Bardhaman district's Bhatar block talked about it quite casually, in fact even jocularly. Everybody in the village knew he was up to his neck in...

The worst fears about education in Punjab have come true. Nearly 9.5% children of school-going age have never been inside a classroom, while about 38% people in villages are illiterate. A new survey on rural education has blown the lid off SAD-BJP government's claim on improvement on this front. Punjab State Farmer's Commission has compiled a report and submitted it to the chief secretary, Punjab. "The report has indicated that the...