-Newsclick.in In 2019, the Gujarat government revealed a 32% rise in crimes against Scheduled Castes between 2013 and 2017, and a 55% rise in crimes against Scheduled Tribes for the same period. On May 22, Jignesh Mevani, MLA from Vadgam, Gujarat, released a strongly worded statement on his Facebook page, following the killing of Rajesh Sondarva. Sondarva was a 21-year-old dalit murdered by upper caste Hindu men in Rajkot, Gujarat. Earlier in...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Drought keeps brides off Maharashtra's Solapur village -Priyanka Kakodkar
-The Times of India SOLAPUR: Mahesh Lahoo Garad, a 28-year-old onion farmer from Ranmasale village in drought-struck Solapur, has been waiting for a bride for three years. But each time a prospective bride's family visits his home, they do not return. "They see how their daughters will have to struggle to fetch water. So they don't come back to take the talks further," says Mahesh. "It looks like I will have to...
More »Rahul's minimum income plan is fatally flawed -SA Aiyar
-The Times of India blog Indira Gandhi’s ‘Garibi Hatao’ swept the polls in 1971. Rahul Gandhi hopes to follow suit with NYAY (Nyuntam Aay Yojana), promising a minimum income of Rs 72,000 per year to the 50 million poorest families. Garibi Hatao flopped badly. So will NYAY unless totally rethought. Indian parties have a consensus on cash grants to the needy. Schemes in Telangana, Odisha and Jharkhand have been followed by Modi’s...
More »Number crunching helps farmers manage water -Manu Moudgil
-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...
More »How dependable is the weather data? -Rajalakshmi Nirmal
-The Hindu Business Line Not very, going by IMD gauge in Badnapur; insurers depend on Skymet AWS If you imagine a rain observatory as a centre with scientific equipment and team of researchers monitoring data, you are mistaken. The writer visited a rain observatory in Badnapur town of Jalna district in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad division. This was in the terrace of the Gram Panchayat Office. The writer was taken aback by what she saw there:...
More »