New Delhi: The Vidarbha farmer's widow whose plight was highlighted by Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi in Parliament, has complained about the Congress led-government in Maharashtra to BJP's Rajnath Singh. With Rahul Gandhi citing her example, Kalavati soon became the face of struggling Widows of Vidharbha's suicide zone in Maharashtra where thousands of farmers have died in the last one decade. Kalavati's grouse is that 4,000 other Widows have not been given...

In Uttar Pradesh's most impoverished region, Bundelkhand, government officials feed off not just the living but also the dead. Headlines Today has exposed how corrupt officials exploit the grieving families of farmers, who have committed suicide.   In a visit to Bundelkhand in 2008, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi repeated a phrase borrowed from his father Rajiv Gandhi: "Out of 100 paise, only 15 paise reaches the poor".   While travelling through this dustbowl...

Poor Andhra villagers now victims of clinical drug trials No Drug Resistance     * 35 women, some men from Guntur district put throughclinical trials of a breast cancer drug. They later complain of joint pains, nausea and chest pains.     * Biotech industry in Andhra is worth about Rs 455 crore     * Touts operating on behalf of pharma companies get people from the poorer districts to Hyderabad for the tests *** Some 35 women...

Victims have not forgotten the following brutal tragedies in the life of independent India, even if the State and political parties may pretend to have. 1984—Delhi: On October 31, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards in revenge for ‘Operation Bluestar’. For the next three days, as Doordarshan telecast the lying in state of her body, over 3000 Sikhs—men and boys—were burnt alive while policemen, politicians and...

The impending BPL Census exercise will not help the poor; on the contrary, it will further deny them a fair share in national resources. The BPL, or Below Poverty Line, Census 2011 for the rural areas will start in select States this month. In a country such as India with vast numbers of the poor, counting the poor often becomes an exercise in undercounting and dividing them, to suit the wholly...