Farmers in Punjab reported low wheat yield this year. Even though the state agriculture machinery sold them certified seeds, not all seeds germinated, several farmers from Ferozepur district told Down To Earth (dte). They said the seeds were spurious. On March 17 and 18, Sunil Jakhar, Congress mla from Abohar block in Ferozepur, raised questions to the state’s agriculture minister in the legislative assembly. Jakhar alleged the government sold ordinary seeds...

For nearly three decades, Selvi V. has lived in a village in the Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu, 75km from Chennai, without a toilet. And there really wasn’t any need felt to have one in this family of daily wage farm labourers. Selvi and her now-married daughter would wake up either early every morning or wait until dark to relieve themselves in a thicket of thorny shrubs a little distance...

Nearly 2,000 indigenous representatives from all over the world will gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Monday for the start of a two-week meeting aimed at ensuring their full participation in development while preserving their culture and identity. At the meeting, the ninth session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, they and Member States, UN agencies and civil society groups will discuss efforts to guarantee...

“She was thrown in the garbage dump outside the village for dogs that ate her. Her only fault — she was the fourth girl born in a poor family,” said Harshinder Kaur, paediatric doctor here, recalling the first time she witnessed discrimination against female infants in Punjab's rural side. “Over a decade ago, I couldn't save that infant and ever since I try to speak for the girls who never...

The Cabinet on Thursday cleared the long-pending Prevention of Torture Bill for introduction in Parliament with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh strongly backing the proposed law despite some misgivings that such a law could demoralize security forces after the Dantewada killings. Though enacting the law is a step towards ratification of the UN convention against other cruel, inhuman punishment and degrading treatment, and has been pending for some time now, the...