-The Tribune Agrarian society vs a non-agrarian economy poses a huge political challenge. JUST how many farmers are there in India? This is not merely a statistical question. This is a question of policy and political significance. We have all grown up reading about India as an agrarian economy, with a majority of its population engaged in farming. Does that continue to be the case? Or has the number of farmers declined...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org Imagine a democratic protest where a million farmers, labourers and others march to the capital and compel discussion of the exploding crisis of the countryside in a special three-week session of Parliament India’s agrarian crisis has gone beyond the agrarian. It’s a crisis of society. Maybe even a civilizational crisis, with perhaps the largest body of small farmers and labourers on earth fighting to save their livelihoods. The agrarian crisis is no...

-TheWire.in Paschimbanga Griha Paricharika Samiti, a Kolkata-based workers' organisation was granted a trade union certificate from the state government. New Delhi: The exploitation and abuse of domestic workers has been prevalent in India for many years now. In addition to being overworked and underpaid, domestic workers are often ill-treated and in some cases, even physically attacked and sexually harassed. The efforts of Paschim Banga Griha Paricharika Samiti (PGPS-West Bengal Domestic Workers Society), a...

-Civil Society News New Delhi: In 1974, Dr Samir Chaudhuri, a paediatrician working in Kolkata’s slums, founded Child in Need Institute (CINI) to tackle the many dimensions of child malnutrition. It struck him at the time that malnutrition wasn’t just a clinical problem but a complex phenomenon rooted in gender issues. Over the years, led by Dr Chaudhuri, CINI developed deep understanding of the social, economic and political underpinnings of malnutrition...

-The Indian Express Women form 80 per cent of urban migrants, but public policy is blind to their concerns. A recent UN report says India is on the “brink of an urban revolution”, as its population in towns and cities are expected to reach 600 million by 2031. Fuelled by migration, megacities of India (Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata) will be among the largest urban concentrations in the world. Interestingly, the 2011 Census...