About 9% of the country's population comprises scheduled tribes, with over 700 communities, of which 75 are 'primitive tribal groups'. Yet, we found on a number of field trips to Andhra Pradesh, conditions among scheduled and primitive tribes differ according to policy whims, and little else. In a village in Vijanagaram district, we found two distinct tribes living side by side: Kondavara, a scheduled tribe, and Savara, a primitive tribe. The...

Amid policy battles over food production, energy resources and economic decline, one untapped natural resource that is guaranteed to boost production on a global scale has been stubbornly overlooked – the power of women in the labour force. According to the World Bank's 2012 World Development Report (WDR) "Gender Equality and Development", ensuring equal access for women farmers would increase maize yields by 11 to 16 percent in Malawi and 17...

The Planning Commission’s new definition of poverty widely criticised as being unrealistic has caused disquiet in the UPA, with Congress leaders privately dubbing the benchmarks insensitive and ally NCP publicly slamming them as an “insult to the poor”. Congress leaders believe the figures, under which anyone spending more than Rs 32 a day in urban areas and Rs 26 in villages will not be considered poor and hence will not be...

The Planning Commission’s latest affidavit to the Supreme Court in the right to food case reveals it has not taken the court’s advice to revise the thresholds and spending that determine the poverty line, although the commission admits to spiralling food costs and inflation. The affidavit was filed in a public interest litigation being pursued by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, which wants the government’s threshold of Rs. 12 and...

India has been ranked the fourth most dangerous country in the world for women, but the widespread practice of selectively aborting female foetuses may make it the most hostile to the female gender. In the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, where the child sex ratio (0 - 6 years of age) has dropped to 886 girls per 1,000 boys - according to provisional data in the 2011 census - a strong civil...