India has witnessed many fiery debates on poverty estimates. Equally contentious has been the issue of inequality. Now a new report on exclusion offers a fresh perspective on poverty, inequality and social justice. (See below a summary of the report) Based on data and knowledge resources available in the public domain, India Exclusion Report 2013-14 highlights the systematic discrimination faced by women, Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Muslims, persons with...

-IANS   NEW DELHI: Rapid economic growth has engineered employment in India but also led to deteriorated working conditions in many sectors, especially manufacturing, an expert said at a conference here Wednesday. Speaking at "Dialogues on the India Exclusion Report-2014", Ravi Srivastava, a professor in the Centre for the Study of Regional Development in Jawaharlal Nehru University, elaborated how the rapid economic boom (2003-2014) generated employment in the country, but necessarily didn't offer...

-The Hindu Business Line   Small farmers in Jharkhand are growing more money and seeing better health, thanks to vegetables Indian farmers have often been perceived as lacking in initiative, but the latest developments on the farm front belie that stereotype. Not only have they shown initiative, they have started a quiet revolution. The phenomenon can be summed up in one word: vegetables. Small farmers, reeling from recurring droughts and declining productivity of staple...

-The Telegraph   Supaul: A college graduate hailing from a farmers' family, Anil Kumar Yadav (32) roamed around in Delhi and Mumbai in search of a job only to return empty-handed, about three years ago. The very idea of getting engaged in the family's traditional vocation was "nightmarish" to him. Anil, a resident of Samda Chowk village under Basantpur block of Supaul district, around 350km northeast of Patna, today owns a spanking motorcycle,...

-PSainath.org   The adivasi women of Edamalakudi, Kerala's remotest panchayat, have formed a headload workers' group, helped light up their villages with solar power, and practice group farming in wild elephant territory. All are Muthavan tribals. Almost all are members of Kerala's extraordinary anti-poverty and gender justice movement - Kudumbashree. They are also neighbours of Chinnathambi, the keeper of the Wilderness Library. When 60 women in Edamalakudi carried about a hundred solar...